Officials from the Stung Treng provincial forestry administration have warned a local SRP commune chief against speaking to the media about the clearing of trees from a 36,000-hectare site to become the reservoir of a giant hydropower dam in the area, the commune chief said yesterday.
On Sunday, Srekor commune chief Siek Mekong said that about 20 workers employed by the joint venture of local conglomerate Royal Group and China’s Hydrolancang International Energy Co. Ltd. had been felling trees in the area since March 21 without informing local communities.
Mr. Mekong said yesterday that four officials from the local forestry administration, including Sith Samnag, the deputy provincial forestry administration chief, visited him to tell him not to speak to the media.
He also said that officials made him sign a piece of paper admitting that he had spoken to the media about the felling of trees in that area. …
Chap Piseth, deputy chief of the Triage Forestry Administration- which is in charge of both Srekor and Kbal communes- said he was present during the meeting with Mr.Mekong and that forestry administration authorities totally denied his claims.
“Although the workers have been sent, the trees have not yet been cut down,” Mr Piseth said. “Clearance of the forest to build the reservoir will not start until Khmer New Year.” …
Workers in Stung Treng province have begun clearing forested land with chainsaws in order to make way for the reservoir of a massive hydropower dam that has drawn ire from local villagers who say they have not been informed about the dam’s construction plans.
The National Assembly approved the financing for the 400-megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in February amid objections from opposition lawmakers who argued that the social and environmental impacts of the dam outweighed its benefits.
The dam is set to displace more than 5,000 villagers, and studies have shown that up to 100,000 residents upstream and downstream of the dam will be severely affected by its impact on fisheries. …
“I am wondering why they are cutting down luxury grade wood,” [Chief of Srekor commune, Mr. Siek Mekong] said.
As part on the law on the financing for the dam, a total of 10 million has been set aside to compensate the families. A further 19.34 million will be spent on home construction, 1.98 million on income rehabilitation and 3.23 million on irrigation systems. …
Villagers near the Sesan River in Stung Treng province are a step closer to being forced to make way for a hydropower dam following a National Assembly vote on Friday, but they are no closer to learning the details of such a move, a community representative said yesterday.
Keo Mib, a representative of villagers set to be relocated from where the $781 million, 400-megawatt dam will be built, said hundreds of families from three villages in the middle of the dam project still knew nothing about relocation plans.
Assembly President Cheam Yeap said the benefits of the 400-megawatt dam were multiple.
“It will stimulate the country’s economy, reduce electricity prices, provide many jobs and enhance technology in our labour and tourism sector,” he said.
The company will pay about $38 million in compensation to relocate 797 families, which will include new houses, schools, health centres, streets and wells.
Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Son Chhay said, however, that according to a previous study, more than 1,000 families should receive compensation. …
A mining company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange has announced a plan to pay $14 million for a license to explore for copper in Preah Vihear province, in a deal involving local conglomerate Royal Group.
In an announcement to the bourse last Thurday, Geopacific Resource NL said that it will take over World Wide Mining Projects Limited (WWM), in order to have the option of taking on the Kao Sa mining exploration on Chheb district. …
Viet Nam has urged Laos to continue its research on the environmental impacts of the planned Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong River. …
Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Luong Thanh Nghi made the statement at a regular press briefing in Ha Noi yesterday when answering a question about Viet Nam’s stance on the construction of Xayaburi dam in Laos.
Nghi added that he hoped Laos will work with Viet Nam, Cambodia and Thailand in conducting careful and comprehensive research on the cumulative impacts on the environment, economics and society of all hydro-power plants expected to be built on the Mekong River.
The US yesterday criticised Laos for announcing it will begin building the 1,285-megawatt Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River today without studying its potential effects on Cambodia and Vietnam.
A spokesperson from the US State Department in Washington said the government was concerned construction of the $3.8 billion dam was proceeding before impact studies had been completed.
“The extent and severity of impacts from the Xayaburi dam on an ecosystem that provides food security and livelihoods for millions are still unknown,” the spokesperson said. …
Cambodia, meanwhile, did not rush to condemn the announcement of the dam.
A statement from the Council of Ministers released yesterday says that Lao president Choummaly Sayasone told Prime Minister Hun Sen during a Sunday meeting that Laos had studied the impacts, and that the premier supported construction in principle provided there was clear evidence that it followed MRC guidelines and didn’t negatively affect Cambodia or the river. …
Sketchy details that fail to specify when construction of the Lower Sesan 2 hydro dam will begin, or name the Chinese company involved, have villagers fearing for their future, representatives and environmental groups say.
Since the Council of Ministers announced on Friday it had signed off on the $780 millions dam, set fora tributary of the Mekong River in Stung Treng province’s Sesan district, villagers have questioned how they will survive of they are forced to make way or it.
About 5,000 people are expected to be relocated, and the impact on fish and land could affect 100,000. …
The government’s announcement about the construction of the 400-megawatt dam on the Sesan river comes amid staunch opposition from environmental groups who fear it will destroy the livelihoods of tens of thousands of fishing and farming families.
A statement from the Council of Ministers says the Hydro Power Lower Sesan 2 company, comprising an unnamed Chinese company and firms from Cambodia and Vietnam, will invest $781 million in the five-year construction project. …
The United States on Monday criticized a decision by the struggling Asian nation of Laos to build the first dam across the mainstream of the Mekong River, a project that environmentalists warn could affect tens of millions of livelihoods and trigger a dam-building spree along Southeast Asia’s mightiest waterway.
The U.S. has urged a moratorium on such projects until impact studies are complete. But the State Department said Monday that Laos has announced its intention to start construction on the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam despite lingering concerns downstream…
Due to rising water level in Thailand’s reservoirs caused by heavy rainfall, the Thai government announced the opening of a dam in Sa Kaeo province, located about 20 km from the Cambodian border. This decision will potentially affect 10,000 Cambodian families in Poipet, Serei Sophorn cities and other provinces in the Northwestern part of Cambodia, provincial officials in Banteay Meanchey said on Sept. 30….
In Laos, the construction of controversial hydroelectric dam in Xayaburi province is under way, despite disagreement from its neighbors, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Xayaburi dam project started when the Laotian government and Thailand’s giant construction company, Ch Karnchang Pcl, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2007. However, scientists, activists and two other countries, Cambodia and Vietnam oppose the construction. They claimed that the hydroelectric dam would directly affect hundreds of thousands of people, disconnect the ecosystem, contribute to the extinction of endangered fish species and block the nutrient-rich sediment for Mekong Delta in Vietnam…
Work has resumed on a controversial $3.5 billion dam across the Mekong River in Laos, its Thai developer said on Thursday, contradicting Laotian assurances it had been suspended following protests over its environmental impact.
Laos agreed in December to suspend the Xayaburi dam project and said on July 13 work had stopped after neighbours Cambodia and Vietnam repeatedly expressed concern that the 1,285 megawatt dam would harm migratory fish and the livelihood of downstream villages…
The World Bank has blacklisted an arm of the company that carried out a much-criticised study into the Xayaburi hydro dam project, it has confirmed.
According to the bank’s website, Pöyry Management Consulting Oy Finland has been banned from conducting business with the bank for three years. The penalty is for allegedly “submitting false invoices and providing improper benefits” to bank staff. …
The Laos government will continue to allow what it has dubbed “preparatory work” on the controversial Xayaburi dam, including the resettlement of villagers, despite promising to suspend the project at last week’s ASEAN Regional Forum, according to a media report in Laos. …
Lao Foreign Minister Dr. Thongloun Sisoulith said on Friday that Laos has postponed the controversial development project of Xayaburi Dam…
Cambodia and Vietnam expressed their shared concerns about the construction project of the dam, which could damage and affect the environment, natural resources, and living condition of the people at the lower countries. …
The Thai company set to build Laos’s Xayaburi hydropower dam will not begin construction until a study determines the dam’s environmental effects on the Mekong River, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on Friday.
Yingluck reaffirmed her commitment to the study, which Mekong River Commission countries Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam agreed in December to undertake before construction could begin. …
In February, Son Chhay wrote to the premier urging him to investigate illegal logging outside the legal clearing area slated for the Stung Tatai dam reservoir in Koh Kong province and the environmental destruction that would be wrought by the Stung Cheay Areng dam. …
In a reply dated June 11, the premier signalled the dam, which would flood thousands of hectares of protected forest in the Central and Southern Cardamoms, will go ahead despite the protestations from Son Chhay and conservationists. …
Cambodia and Vietnam will send a letter signed by the prime ministers of both countries to demand that Laos and Thailand halt the construction of a dam on the mainstream Mekong River in Laos, an official from the Cambodian National Mekong Committee said yesterday.
The decision by Cambodia and Vietnam to express their discord came at a meeting on Tuesday between Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology Lim Kean Hor and Vietnam’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyen Ming Quang, during which recent developments at the Xayaburi dam site were discussed. …
Cambodia and Vietnam will write a joint letter to the Lao and Thai governments urging that construction of the Xayaburi dam, in northern Laos, be halted, a spokesman for the government’s Mekong committee said yesterday.
Minister of Water Resources Lim Kean Hor met with Vietnam’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Nguyen Minh Quang on Tuesday after claims last week that construction of the hydro-electric dam on the Lower Mekong River had escalated. …
Over 300 Buddhist monks and Cambodian residents who live along Mekong River in Kampong Cham province, about 120km from Phnom Penh, gathered in the provincial town to demand for Laos to halt the construction of Xayaburi dam.
“We want the Lao government to stop the construction of Xayaburi dam because it will affect the environment, natural resources and people living at the lower part of the Mekong River,” Venerable So Tra, who joined the rally, said. …
The Venerable Sann Leang, executive director of NGO Environmental More than 500 villagers held a march in eastern Cambodia Friday to protest a controversial dam project on the Mekong River in Laos they say is undergoing construction despite a pledge to halt progress while officials conduct a potential impact study.
The protest against the U.S. $3.8 billion Xayaburi Dam, in the capital city of Kompong Cham province, was led by monks and included students, activists, and staff from a number of nongovernmental organizations.
The group called on the leaders of the four Southeast Asian nations downstream from the dam—Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam—to put an end to construction at the site, citing concerns that the project would negatively impact millions of people in the region and irreparably damage the environment.
Development and an organizer of the march, said the villagers sought to raise awareness of the negative impacts of the dam, which he said would include the destruction of natural resources that riparian communities rely on to make a living. “We are raising awareness for the people who live in Kompong Cham province near the Mekong River.”…the monk said. …
