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Constraints and Opportunities in Planning for the Wise Use of Natural Resources in Developing Countries: Example of a Hydropower Project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Mohammed K. Alam ,
Muhammad R. Mirza  and
O. Eugene Maughan
Mohammed K. Alam
Affiliation:
Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, 3900 Drane Field Road, Lakeland, Florida 33811, USA
Muhammad R. Mirza
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, Government College, Lahore, Pakistan
O. Eugene Maughan
Affiliation:
National Biological Services, 104 Biological Sciences East, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.
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Extract

The impacts of hydropower developments on local environment, ecology, and socio-economics, has influenced, and will continue to influence, the efficacy in decisionmaking and planning/design processes. Big dams have several disadvantages: (a) high costs, (b) possible collapse, (c) evaporation loss, (d) flooding of prime agricultural land, (e) siltation of reservoir, (f) salt-water intrusion in coastal areas, (g) deforestation and ‘greenhouse’ effect, and (h) destruction of habitat for rare species. We must refine our environmental understanding of how hydropower development affects species, both individually and in their interactions with each other. The utter dependence of organisms on appropriate environments is what frustrates most attempts to proceed with development and still protect ecosystems and wider ecocomplexes. Conservation objectives must be integrated with other objectives in formulating national and other policies, before they crystallize into projects and programmes. When ecological factors are considered only at the end of the process, they are liable to be viewed as obstructing development, which can be disastrously wrong. But if integrated at the basic level of decision-making, they can positively guide development most propitiously and beneficially. Translated to the global context, this is best served by holistic thinking.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , Winter 1995 , pp. 352 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1995

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