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International Day of Action for Rivers
March 14, 2008
The International Day of Action Against Dams and For Rivers, Water, and Life was inspired and mandated by the participants of the First International Meeting of People Affected by Dams that took place in March, 1997 in Curitiba, Brazil. Representatives from twenty countries decided that the International Day of Action would fall on 14 March, Brazil’s Day of Action Against Large Dams. One of the goals for the Day of Action is to build and strengthen regional and international networks within the international anti-dam movement.
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Iceland, Togo, and Thailand Join In the Action

Mon, 03/17/2008 - 3:35pm

Iceland: Keeping Dams out of the Beautiful Scenery
In solidarity with farmers in Pjorsa, the group Saving Iceland took action to protect a beautiful, fertile region of the country that is threatened by heavy industry plans to place a new dam on a waterfall in order to power new aluminum smelters and other industries. They built a small "dam" in front of the Landsvirkjuns office entrance so the workers had to either to step over the dam to get inside or use a different entrance. With this peaceful demonstration, Saving Iceland wanted to protest the development of three dams that Landsvirkjun, the national energy company, hopes to build on the Pjorsa. They also held a movie/discussion evening at a local cafe with the theme of the global impact of heavy industry and big dams. Between movies there were discussions about potential actions against the dam. Read more

Togo: Discussion with Dam-Affected Communities
A fruitful discussion was held this week between communities affected by the Nangbeto Dam, along with the presence of colleagues from GTZ Germany. On the 14th, there will be a sit-in in the village of Agotime Nyitoe, where community members have no choice but to drink heavily polluted water from a river that runs directly from the main city of Palime. Read more

Thailand: Government pressured to stop all dam projects
More than 500 dam-affected villagers and local and foreign conservationists in Bangkok marched for 11 hours along the banks of the Moon river to protest against past and future dam projects. The 15-kilometer march ended near the controversial Pak Moon dam site in Khong Chiam district where the group read out their statement and held a commemoration service to mark the 100th day since the death of leading social activist Wanida Tantiwitthayapitak, who led the decade-long protests against the Pak Moon dam. Wanida died last year after a long battle with breast cancer. This year's anti-dam event was the first that was held without Wanida. Read more

For a full list of all actions by region, please visit our main International Day of Action for Rivers page.