Fisheries

From December 2007 World Rivers Review This rainy season, a mushy mess is sliding down the Changuinola River Valley. Huge Volvo machines are tearing up old mountain roads, causing tons of chocolate-brown run-off to flow into nearby streams. The giant machines, operated by Panamanians and other Latinos, are opening new roads for the construction of the first of four large dams planned for this basin. About 100 new houses are being built for the dam's laborers, and a dozen finer homes for the project managers from Vattenfall, a Swedish construction company. The explosion of dam const

A science brief from the WorldFish Center exploring the potential impact of the proposed Don Sahong hydroelectric dam on the fisheries of the Lower Mekong River Basin. Download the pdf in English, Lao,or Khmer

Letter from scientists concerned for the sustainable development of the Mekong River regarding the Don Sahong Dam.

Publication by International Rivers, Friends of the Earth Amazonia, Friends of the Earth Brazil and others sounds an alert to the threat posed by dams planned for the Madeira River

Over half a million city residents, farmers, and fisher folk living at the mouth of the Salween River in Burma stand to lose their major source of drinking water, agricultural productivity, and fish stocks if dams planned upstream go ahead. In the Balance, a report released today by the Mon Youth Progressive Organization (MYPO), reveals how people living on the river’s banks, tributaries, and islands rely on the Salween estuary, where the fresh water of the Salween meets salt water of the Andaman Sea, and how their lives are intricately linked with the seasonal flows and daily tides of the

Open Letter from 28 NGO's to the Lao PDR Government, the Mekong River Commission, & the Governments of Thailand, Cambodia & Vietnam Plea to abandon plans for the Don Sahong Dam on the mainstream Mekong River in the Khone Falls area

IRN and Environmental Defense commissioned an independent review of the Nam Theun 2 reservoir fisheries predictions in the Social Development Plan (SDP) and the Environmental Assessment and Management Plan (EAMP). A reservoir fishery is one of the primary mitigation features for approximately 6,200 people which currently utilize the area to be flooded by the Nam Theun 2 reservoir. The review found that the years immediately after filling are not modeled, and the reservoir will likely be predominantly anoxic during this period. At best, a relatively simple ecosystem will develop in the long-te

IRN and Environmental Defense commissioned an independent review of the NT2 Environmental Assessment and Management Plan's (EAMP) predictions of fisheries impacts in the Xe Bang Fai river. The review concludes that NT2 is likely to have multiple serious, negative impacts on the aquatic resources of the Xe Bang Fai, Nam Phit and other downstream river basins. The probable result will be, as predicted in the project’s Social Development Plan, a "collapse in the aquatic food chain" from the Nam Phit down to the Mekong confluence. Despite these dire predictions, the EAMP – the document which

"Nam Theun 2 is the Laotian version of Thailand’s infamous Pak Mun Dam. UnlikePak Mun, which kills fish and other aquatic organisms only in one river, the Mun, NamTheun 2 hydropower project is brilliantly designed to kill them in three separate rivers: NamTheun, Xe Bang Fai, and Nam Hinboun. No matter how badly Nam Theun 2 turns out,however, the World Bank predictably will represent it as another one of its success stories."

A Survey of River-Based Livelihoods in the Xe Bang Fai River Basin in Central Lao PDRBy Bruce Shoemaker, Ian G. Baird and Monsiri Baird