Heavy Logging Continues at Laotian Dam Site
2/2/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
In anticipation of the still only proposed Nam Theun 2 dam, the
Laotian government has commenced to literally clear the forests from
the Nakai Plateau in central Laos. With much of southeast Asia's
forests heavily fragmented and being further depleted (i.e., Thailand
and Vietnam), Laos contains some of the larger tracts of forest
remaining in the region. It appears that the cycle of forest
destruction (in the name of development), social dislocation and
economic polarization, and environmental decline continues apace in
Laos. Following is a photocopy from Reuters providing further
details.
You would think it would be realized the western industrial
development model does not work. Remaining tracts of virgin forests
to plunder are few, while the effects of forest loss continue to be
felt in ecosystems across the world. At some point global forest and
other environmental change will percolate through the worldwide
ecological system--rendering important ecosystems dysfunctional and
drastically altering necessary flows of energy and nutrients.
Biospheres are not engineered; and ours must be managed, not
continually abused under the misguided conception that development
justifies spiraling ecological decline. No ecology, no economy. The
latter is a subset of the first.
g.b.
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Heavy logging continues at Laotian dam site
2/2/97
Copyright 1997 by Reuters
NAKAI NEUA, Laos, Feb 2 (Reuter) - The Laotian government last week
held public discussions on a proposed $1.5 billion dam, but even as
officials debated its merits, logging trucks were rolling through this
desolate village at the project site.
In this area of Nakai Plateau in central Laos, which is due to be
flooded, government-sanctioned logging has been under way on an off
for more than two decades, rendering much of the dam discussion
academic, analysts said.
The 23 ethnic villages on the plateau are extremely poor even by
Laotian standards, eking out a living by slash-and-burn farming that
exacerbates the environmental toll.
With little hope for the forests or fortunes of the Nakai people,
analysts said, displacement of the population and the loss of the
wildlife surviving here is already being claimed as a small price to
pay for big development.
"It's a major tragedy. These people have no rice, nothing," said one
international observer.
"They (the government and developers) think the dam is a foregone
conclusion."
The area's fate may have been sealed as long ago as the 1970s and
1980s, when commercial loggers began cutting down trees here.
But the most damage has occurred since 1993, when the military began
clearing the entire site of the future reservoir -- before any
environmental studies were carried out.
Today, giant pine and hardwood logs litter the dusty landscape at
every turn, and heavy trucks loaded with timber pass on the rutted
roads every few minutes to supply nearby chipboard and plywood
factories around the clock.
For Nor Phonglasmooth, 69, these are the worst times he has seen.
Unchecked floods last year swept away his crops, forcing him to sell
seven water buffalo. Without government help, he said, he and others
in his village may starve.
"Before, we only logged for farming. There were very dense trees, wild
animals...Then, they cut the trees and took them away," he said,
labouring to form his words under the effects of a stroke that left
him partially paralysed two years ago.
"There is now not enough food for myself and my wife. There are no
crops... With the dam, I don't know. I hope we will be better off,"
Nor said.
The degraded state of Nor's village and the 22 others is a key
argument for dam advocates, including the government, which held last
week's conference to help persuade the World Bank to support the
project.
Laotian officials told the conference that the 1,000 families in the
area could only be helped by relocation for the dam.
"We feel hydropower will reduce quantities of logging (by villagers
practising slash-and-burn techniques) by alleviating poverty and a
hand-to-mouth state of being," said Minister of Industry and
Handicraft Khammoune Phonekeo.
He defended the government's logging of the area, which he said was
planned carefully, saying that the dam's catchment area will be
preserved as a conservation area.
And while Nor said he still hears elephants trumpeting in the night,
dam proponents say wildlife in the area is scarce.
"The Nakai Plateau is substantially degraded. While perhaps 100 years
ago it was valuable in biodiversity terms, it is not now nor will it
ever be," said David Iverach, director of the five developers' Nam
Theun 2 Electricity Consortium (NTEC).
Laotian officials have said the planned 900-megawatt dam would help
boost the impoverished nation's economy.
Although rich in natural resources, Laos' per-capita gross domestic
product income is $350 a year and the government sees hydropower as a
key way to generate much-needed hard currency and reduce the nation's
heavy reliance on foreign aid.
The government is counting neighbouring Thailand to buy most of the
Nam Theun 2 dam's electricity.