Fears grow that dam across Mekong River in Laos could harm World Heritage site of Luang Prabang

LUANG PRABANG – Landlocked Laos does not have the well-known seashores of its neighbors to draw vacationers, however as a substitute depends upon the pristine good looks of its mountains and rivers and historic websites to carry in guests.

The crown jewel is Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site the place legend has it that Buddha as soon as rested all through his travels. It brings all of the parts in combination, with its combine of historical Laotian and French colonial structure on a peninsula on the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam Khan rivers.

But a multibillion-dollar dam venture underway 25 kilometers (15 miles) upstream has induced issues that it could end result in the town shedding its UNESCO standing, and broader questions on what the federal government’s formidable plans to construct more than one dams across the Mekong will do to the river, the lifeblood of Southeast Asia.

“When the Luang Prabang Dam is complete, and it’s already well under construction, the river is going to trickle into a dead body of water,” stated Brian Eyler, director of the Washington-based Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia Program and its Energy, Water and Sustainability Program.

“The people going to Luang Prabang as tourists to see the mighty Mekong and see how the Lao people interact with the river, all those interactions are going to be gone — all the fishing, meaningful local boating and commerce done by locals on relatively small boats will end.”

The dam may be being constructed close to an lively fault line, and although research of the design conclude it could resist an earthquake, native citizens are fearful.

For Som Phone, a 38-year-old excursion boat operator and lifetime Luang Prabang resident, recollections of the 2018 cave in of every other dam in Laos that killed dozens and displaced 1000’s, blamed on shoddy building, are nonetheless recent.

“Many people died,” he stated.

Luang Prabang isn’t but on UNESCO’s checklist of endangered World Heritage websites, however the Paris-based company has defined a chain of issues, together with the security of historical structures and the impact of the dam venture on safe wetlands and the town’s riverbanks, and is looking ahead to a file again from Laos.

“Previous studies carried out by the authorities have not yet established whether or not the project could have a negative impact,” UNESCO stated in an emailed reaction to questions from The Associated Press.

The factor is to be mentioned by way of UNESCO in July all through its conferences in New Delhi, however in the period in-between, the development continues.

The site is a hive of task, with backhoes tearing shovelfuls of deep crimson soil from the hills alongside the river, that are then dumped along side lots of stone into the Mekong to shape a basis.

The dam site is inside view of the Pak Ou caves, house to masses of Buddha statues and a well-liked aspect travel for vacationers visiting Luang Prabang.

Once finished, the venture is predicted to displace greater than 500 households and affect 20 villages.

Luang Prabang’s World Heritage Office referred queries at the standing of its reaction to UNESCO to the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, which referred inquiries to the Foreign Ministry.

The Foreign Ministry refused to remark at the phone and didn’t reply to the emailed questions it asked.

Nestled some of the mountains of northern Laos, Luang Prabang was once the capital from the 14th to the sixteenth century earlier than it was once moved to Vientiane.

Its historical middle has a lot of Buddhist temples, a former royal palace, structures from the French colonial technology and a mountaintop shrine constructed round what is claimed to be Buddha’s footprint. Several picturesque waterfalls are inside a brief pressure from the town.

A bustling evening marketplace boasts stalls promoting conventional Lao handicrafts, in the community made whisky, in addition to trinkets constituted of fragments of some of the tens of millions of American bombs dropped at the nation all through the Vietnam struggle in a marketing campaign to check out to disrupt communist provide traces. At a colourful morning marketplace, distributors promote brightly coloured peppers, spices, fish and extra unique meals.

Many guests arrive on small river cruise boats, or by way of teach on a brand new high-speed rail machine, constructed with investment from China as phase of its Belt and Road venture, which connects Vientiane with the Chinese town of Kunming.

It was once named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 for its “unique, remarkably well-preserved townscape” blended with its “natural spaces located in the heart of the city and along the riverbanks and wetlands.”

The Luang Prabang dam is one of 9 that Laos plans across the Mekong. Two others exist already, and Laos has additionally built dozens of dams on Mekong tributaries, shifting at a speedy tempo over in regards to the ultimate 12 years as phase of an formidable executive plan to make the rustic the “battery of Southeast Asia” by way of supplying its neighbors with electrical energy.

Laos has relied closely on overseas investment, basically from China and Thailand, for the development, phase of the rationale it now owes a crippling debt to China that it’s suffering to pay off.

“When we think about the Laos’ ‘battery of Southeast Asia,’ program, that was really Laos flinging its doors wide open to foreign investors to come in and build dams,” said Eyler, who also co-leads the Stimson Center’s Mekong Dam Monitor program.

Approval of dam projects moves quickly, often without thorough consideration of their impact, and the electricity is largely exported to Laos’ neighbors like Thailand, he added.

“This dam won’t generate a lot of power for Laos, it’s going to power new shopping malls in Bangkok,” Eyler stated of the Luang Prabang venture. “So there’s a mismatch of those who are negatively affected and those who are beneficiaries.”

The first mainstream dam was the Xayaburi dam, just downstream from Luang Prabang, which began operating in 2019 and has already affected the city, said Philip Hirsch, a professor emeritus of human geology at Sydney University.

“It’s already become a lakeside town rather than a riverside town … due to the effects of the Xayaburi dam downstream,” he said.

Plans are to allow a constant flow of water through the new Luang Prabang dam, as a so-called run-of-the-river dam, but the waters will be further starved of sediment, affecting traditional fishing and farming of the banks.

In a report commissioned by Laotian authorities, British consultancy CBA concluded that “key issues relating to catastrophic flooding due to dam failure and changes to water levels on the Mekong have been addressed,” but seismologists and others remain concerned about it being built near an active fault line.

“When you have a reservoir 78 kilometers long and you’ve raised the water level about 40 meters, you’d just have a wall of water and given how low-lying some of the parts of Luang Prabang are along the river, it’d be devastating,” Hirsch said.

The Mekong River Commission, an organization formed for cooperation on issues regarding the river by the countries through which it flows — Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam — said its technical review of the project showed ground movement in recent earthquakes was “significantly below the design limit” of the dam.

In a written response to questions from the AP, it noted that Laos’ government has established an independent panel to monitor the issue of dam safety.

The Mekong River supports the largest inland fishery in the world, and the river commission also examined the dam’s potential impact on hydrology, sediment, water quality, fish and other issues.

It concluded that the dam, when taken into consideration with others already built or planned by Laos, could cause harm downstream in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, confirming concerns those countries have voiced.

“In isolation, the potential transboundary harmful effects due to the Luang Prabang hydropower project may not be substantial,” the river commission said. “But on top of the other existing and planned development it may have considerable impact on the other riparian states.”

For tourist Barbara Curti who came to Luang Prabang to see “the real people, the real life” of Laos, a new dam could significantly impact the appeal of the city as a destination.

“For me, it’s a problem, the construction of the dam, because they would change too much of the life and the real character of the city,” said the 46-year-old Italian, sitting on the banks of the Mekong with a friend.

“In my opinion, we have to preserve the traditions.”

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