Seminar on Environment and Development in Vietnam

Friday and Saturday, December 6-7, 1996

Common Room, University House,
and J G Crawford Building, National Centre for Development Studies,
Australian National University

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Workshop Session

Damming the Mekong - Implications for Vietnam

Facilitator: Aviva Imhof,
AID/WATCH

This workshop will outline Australian and Asian Development Bank involvement in the Mekong region and potential impacts of proposed hydropower developments for Vietnam.

AID/WATCH is an Australian non government organisation that monitors the social and environmental impact of Australia's overseas aid program. For a number of years AID/WATCH has been monitoring developments in the Mekong region, most particularly plans for hydropower developments in Laos. AID/WATCH is most concerned about the role development agencies such as AusAID and the Asian Development Bank, and Australian companies such as Transfield and Tasmanian Hydroelectric Commission Enterprises Corporation, are playing in the region.

The Mekong is the eleventh longest river in the world and is seen as one of the great undeveloped resources of South-East Asia. Dams currently regulate less than five percent of the Mekong's catchment area and annual discharge.

The Asian Development Bank estimates the Mekong Basin has a theoretical hydropower generating potential of 58,000 MW and that about 37,000 MW of installed capacity is feasible. Laos alone has an estimated potential output of 18,000 MW and has proposed to build more than 50 dams in the next 25 years to feed the energy needs of Thailand. Whilst only 11 dams have so far been constructed on Mekong tributaries, there are countless projects in the feasibility and design stages.

Development agencies like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Development Program have played a crucial role in identifying potential projects in the region and in catalysing private sector investment. Similarly, AusAID is providing financing for the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to play an advisory role to the Mekong River Commission, for a number of engineers in the Lao Office of Hydropower, and for a land titling project being carried out by BHP.

Australian companies, faced with a shrinking demand for hydro dams in Australia, are playing a key role in the development of this region. Companies like construction giant Transfield, the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation, John Holland Holdings Limited and the Tasmanian Hydroelectric Commission Enterprises Corporation (HECEC) have already won contracts to construct dams in Laos. Others are vying to get their share of this lucrative market.

The impact of these developments on the people of the Mekong region, which encompasses Yunnan Province in China, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, is potentially devastating. Yet no attempt has been made by any of the institutions involved to undertake an assessment of the cumulative impacts of proposed developments for the downstream riparian states, most particularly Cambodia and Vietnam. The Tonle Sap and the Mekong Delta, two critical rice-growing areas, are particularly endangered.

AID/WATCH: PO Box 652, Woollahra NSW 2025, Australia
Office: 94 Liverpool St, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
Phone: +61 (2) 9264 6090 Fax: +61 (2) 9264 6092
Email: aidwatch@peg.apc.org
Web: http://www.peg.apc.org/~aidwatch