Heavy Logging Continues at Laotian Dam Site

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

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

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.

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