CONTESTED WATERSCAPES IN THE MEKONG REGION: … · 2015-02-19 · CONTESTED WATERSCAPES IN THE...

CONTESTED WATERSCAPES IN THE MEKONG REGION: HYDROPOWER, LIVELIHOODS

AND GOVERNANCE

Tira

ForanAustralian National University18 August 2009

Key Messages

The water resources of the Mekong region are increasingly contestedGovernments, companies, banks drive new investments; new financiers emergingroads, dams, irrigation schemes, navigation

These projects may provide benefits to wider society . . . but also pose multiple burdens and risks

Millions of people depend on wetlands, floodplains and aquatic resourcesWe need to put infrastructure development in its place

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Notes: Mekong region = from the Irrawaddy and Nu-Salween in the west, across the Chao Phraya to the Lancang-Mekong and Red River in the east—

Contested Waterscapes: purpose and themes

JustificationHow are large‐scale projects proposed, justified, and built?

ContestationAre projects contested, and if so how?

Governance regimesHow do specific governance regimes influence outcomes?

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Regimes: institutions, interests, discourses

Importance of narratives

Development policy is an attempt to make complex problems identifiable and uncertainty manageable.

Narratives = simple story lines of how a ‘problem’ has arisen and will unfold

hence what the necessary course of action should be

Development narratives are the ‘conventional wisdom’

deeply embedded; rarely challenged

Legitimise certain types of knowledge and action

Storytelling = how actors and institutions make claim to action and ownership over resources

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Provides a short history of post-WWII river basin planning, focusing on the role of actors such as the USBR, US AID, and the Mekong Committee, which commissioned studies calling for large m/p dam projects on the mainstream and the tributaries This slide shows the massive Pa Mong, Kemarat, and Ban Koum projects on the mainstream (Pa Mong => 250,000 resettlement and was not built. However, many other projects on the tributaries WERE built beginning in the 1960s (Lam Pao, Nam Pong) and in succeeding decades (Pak Mun, Theun Hinboun, Nam Theun 2)

Presenter

Presentation Notes

The vision that drove these plans was for physical harnessing of rivers to serve human needs, with no recognition of ecosystem functions and values, the same approach US agencies such as the TVA and the ACE applied to re-engineer the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers *NEXT

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.etsuilab.org/images/TVA Logo copy.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.etsuilab.org/corporate_page.asp&h=267&w=267&sz=14&tbnid=bIdYVg10TQl3rM:&tbnh=108&tbnw=108&hl=en&start=4&prev=/images?q=tva&svnum=100&hl=en&lr=

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/images/tvacolor.gif&imgrefurl=http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/&h=190&w=199&sz=7&tbnid=ugAcWYANagdPUM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=99&hl=en&start=23&prev=/images?q=tva&start=20&svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&sa=N

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Large dams were symbols of nation building & this was a popular vision w/wide *NEXT

What is special about water resources development?

People are interconnectedPeople and ecosystems also are

Interventions in the hydrological cycle generate costs, benefits and risks

spread spatially and socially across the basin

Externalities are linked to changes in the water regime

in terms of quantity, quality, timing or sediment load

Old and new hydropower players in the Mekong Region

2

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Key messages:

Eleven hydropower schemes proposed on the lower Mekong

Credit: Thai CSOs

Presenter

Presentation Notes

However because of the Indochina war relatively few large dams were built This slide shows operating dams in RED, dams under construction in BLUE But the pace of developer interest is increasing again both 4 hydropower AND irrigation dams[*NEXT]

Nam Theun

2 dam (during construction)

Pak Mun

Dam: Perpetually Contested?3

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Pak Mun Dam = Thailand’s most controversial dam, involving disputes between state & civil society, between pro- and anti-dam villagers This chapter explores the history & politics of decision-making around this project Key messages: Pak Mun offers many lessons about decision making & democratization / - This dam, which was planned and implemented with low transparency and accountability, helped trigger an unfolding, emergent series of disputes. Disputes over Pak Mun helped democratize Thd. Decn making around what to do about Pak Mun, once it b/came disputed, has been directly influenced by a number of very basic policy argts, and indirectly influenced by the massive amount of knowledge generated by expert studies. One important example is the shifting justification of Pak Mun heard repeatedly over the years of the project. It took the form: ‘The project has already been approved . . . [or] ‘Construction has already started . . . [or] ‘The dam has already been built . . . so therefore the project must proceed.’ - Pak Mun shows that dependence on wild-capture aquatic resources persists. *would be nice to use a fisheries procession march image This important finding from relatively ‘modern’ Thailand implies hydropower development will lead to even stronger negative impacts for small farmers elsewhere in the Mekong region.

During the “5 month, 9 day rally”Dec. 1994

After the “win-win”

opening solution, June 2004

Presenter

Presentation Notes

These two pictures encapsulate the history of struggle over PMD fairly well: Top picture: protest in late 1993, over compensation for loss of fisheries income during construction of the dam Bottom picture: open gates of PMD in 2004, outcome of successive rounds of mobilization

The Nam Theun

2 Controversy and its Lessons for Laos

4

Presenter

Presentation Notes

This chapter is a mini-discussion or debate not just about NT2, but on the proper role of hydropower as a source of revenue to finance national economic development Key Messages:

Nam Theun

2 reservoir after impoundment

Damming the Salween

River5

Approximate location of proposed projects on Nu/Salween

Irrigation in the Lower Mekong Basin Countries: The Beginning of a New Era?

6

Presenter

Presentation Notes

All LMB countries have ambitious plans & schemes to expand irrgn, For example Thailand : plan to build underground pipeline that would divert water from the Mekong River to Isaan (Bangkok Post, 2008) was included by the government in the ‘top-priority’ mega-projects, with a total value of at least 500 billion baht (about US$15 billion). Cambodia: recent spike in food and fuel prices interest from outside actors but they face a number of problems, beginning w/ technical & economic problems: Technical – in controlling water Economic problems: States want to reduce management costs . . . . . . But farmers’ incentives to take over schemes are a function of: Profitability of agriculture (which depends on other input costs / other opportunity costs / other uses of their labor) (2) Institutional problems exist – there are challenges with respect to: Genuine participation (vs. top-down design and water allocation) Capacity of farmers’ associations Coordination among agencies (e.g., Cambodia) Corruption (3) Many reforms needed if want demand-driven, user-responsive systems

Irrigation canals: Attapeu, Southern Laos

Landscape transformations and new approaches to wetlands management in the Songkhram

River Basin7

Songkhram: changing waterscapes

Blake 2008

Rich or poor: NR dependent livelihoods

The Delta Machine: Water Management in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta in Historical and Contem-

porary

Perspective

8

Mekong delta: “a work without end”

Biggs et al. / Kahonen

2008

Irrigation canal, Bac

Lieu, Mekong Delta

Delta farmers: intensification and differentiation

Hydropower in the Mekong Region: What are the Likely Impacts on Fisheries?

9

Presenter

Presentation Notes

The ‘Greening of Isaan’: Politics, Ideology and Irrigation Development in the Northeast of Thailand10

Proposed Khong-Chi-Mun

project, late 1980s: 3 stages, 42 years, 800,000 ha

Proposed Water Grid project, 2003 (5 years , +16.5 million ha)

The Promise of Flood Protection: Dikes and Dams, Drains and Diversions

11

Songs of the doomed: The Continuing Neglect of Capture Fisheries in Hydropower Development in the Mekong

12

De-marginalizing the Mekong River Commission

14

MRC organizational chart

MRC Basin Development Plan Programme

(BDP) policy narrative:

“Sustainable development can be planned using IWRM principles”

IWRM principles:Participatory, pro-poor multi-stakeholder dialogueMulti-level and cross-sectoral collaborationMRC can build (via NMCs and line agencies) capacity to do so

Source: adapted from BDP 2009

Presenter

Presentation Notes

The Anti-Politics of Mekong Knowledge Production

13

“The role of the MRC as a knowledge production agency . . . should not be to pretend to take the politics out of decision-making, but rather to foster a political dialogue between and within riparian countries that is informed by a better understanding of the implications of particular decisions . . . "

Contested Waterscapes: Where to Next? 15

Themes

How are large‐scale projects proposed, justified, and built?

Past: appeals to national securityGrand narratives of modernizationPresent: many old projects are being dusted off

rhetoric of mitigation, tradeoffs, and best practicesalso, argument that more investment in water infrastructure povery alleviation‘development is inevitable’; ‘development cannot wait’existing benefits not recognized or downplayed Simplistic and unrealistic assumptions made in project feasibility studies; many examples of poor EIAs

Cases: Irrigation in NE Thailand & Vietnam Delta; Mekong mainstream dams cascade; Nam Theun 2

Justifications: our analysis

There is nothing “inevitable” about development . . . except serious negative impacts

Dominant justifications are simplistic

More balanced outcomes largely result from various forms of contestation

Small‐scale development is more sustainable

Need pro‐development fisheries narratives

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Promises of profitable cash crop production often amount to wishful thinking: assume farmers have ability to pay more for water; to grow cash crops requiring more inputs Assume labor inputs exis Assume marketing problems can be solved by contract farming during slack season

Are projects contested, and if so how?

Multiple forms of contestation, reflecting overall development of civil society in the region: Resistance: weapons of the weak

E.g., Vietnam Delta ‐ reluctance to comply with state policy

Analytical contestation (politics of knowledge)Contesting feasibility studies & IAsPromoting stronger standards

AdvocacyMedia campaignsCounter‐knowledge (Tai Baan)Civil disobedience

Cases: Pak Mun Dam, NT2 Dam, Rasi Salai, Hua Na

Presenter

Presentation Notes

A lot of politics revolves around how impacts are identified, framed, assessed, valued, mitigated and compensated. Social and environmental impacts are usually identified by (often mandatory) impact assessments. These studies are often not made available to the public, sometimes undertaken after construction has started, and premised upon an approach of mitigating impacts. Impact assessments are seen as a ‘bureaucratic ‘hoop’ to be jumped through in order to start construction, not as an authentic mechanism to decide whether or not the dam should be built’ (Friesen, 1999). States are often content to take impact assessments as just another perfunctory step towards project approval or completion. IMPORTANCE OF INTERESTS *Transition to governance regimes

Do specific governance regimes make a difference to decision making?

General patternsPower highly concentrated among eliteRepression of civil society organizationsInterest‐driven decision makingLimited public dialogue

Pressure on lower levels of governmentThailand

Money politics patronage & populist policies megaprojectsAd‐hoc decision making by the executive branch (vs. parliament) many Cabinet resolutions, fewer laws

Five pathways to improving governance

1 Produce knowledgeconventional science & alternative knowledge

2 Bridge different viewpoints by deliberationand negotiation

3 Establish rules, standards, and norms

4 Shift balance of power through advocacy

5 Promote transboundary management

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Efforts at improving transboundary management of resources member countries have struggled to negotiate specific and meaningful rules for water utilization, project notification and the coordination of development plans (see chapter 14). For the most part members have successfully maintained a situation where they can pursue their own interests unfettered as much as possible by concerns of other states.

Acknowledgements

Photo credits: NASA (Siphandone); Khao

Sod Newspaper

(Pak Mun

protest); Buchita

(Pak Mun

protest 1994); Nu

river

advocates (Nu

river); MRC (1995 agreement); International

Rivers (NT2 and Lao fisher images); Book 2 contributors

THANK YOU

State-centered

governance

Society-centered

governance

participation

empowerment

Ma

CoSta

Shifting governance

Ma Co

Sta

• Deliberation• Advocacy• Norms• Knowledge production

• Institutions• Roles• Tools

G1G2

(1) Engage in knowledge production

Few Mekong river fish were regarded as migratory in the 1960s (Hori, 2000)

vs.specialists now estimate ‘that over 70 percent of the total fish catch in the Lower Mekong Basin is dependent on long distance migrant species’

(Dugan, 2008).

• Modelling

• Scenarios

• Impact assessments

(1) Engage in knowledge production

Narratives and counter narratives & the politics of knowledge

1.Documenting the impact of the Yali

Falls dam in Cambodia

2.Thai Baan research

3.Kaeng

Sua

Ten dam on the Yom River in upper northern Thailand ‘to protect Bangkok from flooding’

4.Fisheries as a doomed resource

5.Northeast Thailand as a desert waiting to bloom

(2) Discussing and debating alternatives

"Deliberative democracy", social learning

1.‘Exploring Water Futures Together’

2006 dialogue

2.Watershed committees; participatory river basin management

3.MRC Hydropower Forum in 2008

Participatory governance?

(3) Promoting standards

Constraining/guiding powerful actors' behaviour

1.Integrated Resource Planning (IRP)2.World Bank and ADB code of conducts3.Voluntary codes of conduct for financial institutions: e.g., Equator principles, Carbon principles4.2009 Sustainability Assessment Protocol (International Hydropower Association)5.Guidelines for Chinese companies working abroad (developed by Global Environment Institute)6.Aarhus

Convention

(4) Advocacy

Shifting the power balance, exposing unethical behaviours, promoting transparency, struggling for compensations, proposing alternatives, etc.

1.NGOs (TERRA, SEARIN, IR, etc)

2.The Assembly of the Poor

3.Academics

(5) Transboundary

water management

Agreements, rules of conduct between riparian countries

1.Agreements between riparian countries

2.Increase transparency in decision-making

3.Preventing free-riding

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