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 Table
of Contents
Chapter 3
Journalists from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia
and Thailand, brought together by the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation,
gather atop
the Pak Moon
Dam to study the project and its consequences. |
Chapter 3 examines the controversy over big
dams, arguably the single most contentious environmental issue in Southeast
Asia. The Mekong and Salween river basins have long been shrouded in mystery,
their people and ecological riches isolated by war and xenophobic governments.
Now that it has been opened up to the outside world, however, ambitious
dam-building plans have been laid, putting China at odds with many of its
neighbors to the south. In Thailand, meanwhile, grass roots opposition to
large dams has not only served as the backbone to a growing environmental
movement, but also helped to spark a much broader-based democracy movement.
At least some of the controversy over dams could be avoided if countries
stopped wasting so much of their water and energy, as an ambitious demand-side
management project has demonstrated. |
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