Laos / Campaigns

"Since the dam was built, some fish species have disappeared entirely. Consultants promised fish ponds and other compensation, but these have not appeared."

– Leader of the Ban Nyang Kheua village, October 2002

In 2005, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank approved millions of dollars in guarantees and loans for the Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project in central Laos. The $1.45 billion project is supposed to generate revenue for the Lao government through power exports to Thailand. Project proponents claim that Nam Theun 2 revenues will be used to help the poor. But in a country ranked as one of the 10 most corrupt by Transparency International, that is a high-risk bet - especially for the tens of thousands of Laotians bearing the project's social and environmental costs.

"[Before the dam] I used to be able to earn 100,000 kip from one hour's fishing. Now I must work hard all day for [the plantation company] to earn 20,000 kip."

Fisherman from Ban Nong Boua, along the Hinboun River, 2007.

While China is midway through the construction of a controversial cascade of major dam projects on the Upper Mekong mainstream, the lower stretch of the river shared by Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam has so far escaped hydropower development. But now there are troubling signs that the tide is turning, as Laos and Cambodia offer up stretches of the mighy Mekong to dam builders.

Completed in 1996, the Nam Song Diversion Dam was funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at a cost of $31.5 million. It was designed to divert water to the Nam Ngum reservoir to increase the generating capacity of the Nam Ngum 1 Dam. In 2001, an ADB-commissioned study concluded that the project had "caused severe impacts on aquatic ecosystems and human use by 13 villages."

The Lao government has announced its intention to build close to 30 new dams by 2020. Learn more about some key Lao hydropower projects, such as Nam Theun 1 and the Nam Ngum hydropower cascade. Download a map or a table of some existing and proposed Lao hydro projects.