23 - The Mekong: Uncertain Future of a Great River

Summary

“Without doubt, no other river, over such a length, has a more singular or remarkable character”

Francis Garnier (1839–1873) explorer of the Mekong

When, at a meeting held in Phnom Penh in April 2011 the Lao government bowed to pressure from Vietnam and Cambodia and agreed to suspend until 2011 its decision to construct a dam at Xayaburi, a location on the Mekong River between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, the issue of the river's future was brought into sharp relief. For what was involved in the discussion that took place in Phnom Penh was an unresolved debate about how one of the world's great rivers would function in the future. Was it to continue as a major resource of food for the populations living in the Lower Mekong Basin or LMB (The area which drains into the Mekong in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, but not Burma which ‘tilts’ away from the river)? Or was it to become a source of hydroelectric power, even if this meant destroying the combined bounty of fish and agricultural production that the Mekong has rendered up over thousands of years? At the time of writing, in June 2011, this issue remains far from resolved. In the text thatfollows, I have attempted to place contemporary developments in their historical context and to argue that embracing the second alternative — the development of hydropower as the choice for the future — carries with it risks of the most fundamental kind for the 60 million inhabitants of the LMB who are so reliant on the river.

THE RIVER AND ITS HISTORY

The Mekong, a name that is a contraction from the Thai Me Nam Khan, the ‘Mother of the Waters’, is frequently and correctly spoken of as Southeast Asia's longest river. For some 2,250 kilometres, or 46 per cent, of its total 4,900 kilometres length does indeed flow through Southeast Asia. But the other 44 per cent of its course runs through Chinese territory, since it rises high in the eastern plateau of Tibet, at an elevation of over 5,000 metres, and flows east and then south through Yunnan province.