By: Pai Deetes, Thailand & Myanmar Campaigns Director FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Today, the Network of Thai People in Eight Mekong Provinces submits additional evidence to the Thai Supreme Administrative Court in the ongoing lawsuit regarding the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in Laos. The lawsuit targets five Thai state agencies and challenges the legitimacy…
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Guest blog by Gokce Sencan Gokce Sencan, a Turkish water policy researcher based in California, shares the experience from her recent visit to the ancient town of Hasankeyf along the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey. Hasankeyf, which has been continuously inhabited for the last 12,000 years, is slowly being drowned as the reservoir behind the…
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By: Pai Deetes, Thailand and Myanmar Campaigns Director In a momentous win for the Mekong River, this week the Thai Cabinet formally called for cancellation of the Lancang-Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement Project, popularly known as the Mekong “rapids-blasting” project. The cabinet decision is the culmination of decades of campaigning by Thai Mekong communities and civil…
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By: Bruce Shoemaker, guest blogger After decades of controversy and campaigning by Indigenous and environmental groups, the largest dam removal project to date world-wide is moving forward in far-northern California and southern Oregon of the United States. Four large hydropower dams on the Klamath River are to be removed, restoring hundreds of miles of habitat for…
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Permanent protections for free-flowing rivers need to be a centerpiece of every country’s national climate action plan. Chile can lead the way. Originally published on the New York Times, 12/29/2019 By: Macarena Soler, Monti Aguirre and Juan Pablo Orrego Macarena Soler is the founder of Geute Conservación Sur, Monti Aguirre is the Latin America program coordinator of International…
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By: Brent Millikan, Latin American Program Director COP 25: Read the civil society declaration on the crisis of deforestation and burning in the Brazilian Amazon In December 2019, at COP 25 of the UN Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) in Madrid, Brazilian environmental and human rights activists launched a joint declaration on the crisis of deforestation and…
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By: 276 civil society organizations On behalf of 276 civil society organizations from around the world, we are calling upon the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) to abandon the certification of destructive hydropower projects as climate-friendly. The proposed hydropower criteria developed by CBI and its technical working group fall far short of acceptable standards and practice, and…
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Chinese companies are pushing to resume destructive dam projects, ignoring a key assessment By: Maureen Harris, Programs Director & Pai Deetes, Thailand & Myanmar Campaigns Director Also featured on China Dialogue Much media attention in Myanmar is focussed on China’s apparent efforts to revive the stalled Myitsone dam, its role in advising the Myanmar government on developing a new…
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One year ago today, on 23 July 2018, Saddle Dam of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower project in Attapeu Province, Laos, collapsed. The dam collapse unleashed a disaster with transboundary implications in which dozens of people were killed and thousands of residents were driven from their homes. We offer our thoughts and prayers for the 49…
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New report calls on developers, banks and insurers to ensure full compensation and restitution for victims, who remain in dire conditions facing an uncertain future FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Bangkok, July 23, 2019 – One year after the devastating collapse of saddle dam D of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower project in southern Laos, none of the…
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By: Josh Klemm, Policy Director Originally posted on Mongabay This July represents a critical opportunity to protect rivers and the World Heritage sites that depend on them. Key government leaders will converge on Baku, Azerbaijan for the 43rd annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee this week. Established under the auspices of the United Nations…
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