Pause to consider before doing permanent damage
April 21, 2011
The Nation
Editorial
Thailand will be complicit if the proposed Xayaburi dam on the Mekong in Laos turns out to be an ecological disaster, as many forewarn
Concern over the degradation of the ecological system in and around the Mekong River - which flows through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam - has grabbed the attention of a leading lawmaker in the United States. Senator Jim Webb, chairman of the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and its Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, issued a statement recently saying he was troubled by the proposed construction in Laos of the Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong mainstream.
The planning behind the dam, said Webb, set "a dangerously harmful precedent as it relates to the environmental health of Southeast Asia. Numerous scientific studies have concluded that construction of the Xayaburi Dam and other proposed mainstream dams will have devastating environmental, economic and social consequences for the entire Mekong sub-region".
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