Myanmar's toxic legacy of large dams

Myanmar's toxic legacy of large dams

In September spectacular drone footage revealed the beauty of the
waterfalls, rapids, ancient temples and islets of the Nam Pang River, a
tributary of the Salween in northern Myanmar's Shan state known as Kun hing,
or "thousand islands."

The footage was part of a campaign documentary, "Drowning a Thousand
Islands", made by local activists to show the impact of the planned Mong Ton
dam. If built, it will be the tallest dam in South-east Asia and flood
villages and pristine landscape which were, until recently, cut off from the
outside world due to decades of civil war.

Mong Ton is just one of many controversial large dams underway in Myanmar
where the government is betting on large hydropower to solve its energy
crisis. But large dams have faced fierce resistance, seen by many as a
symbol of military oppression, environmental destruction and part of a wider
struggle over land and resources between the government and ethnic groups.

Myanmar's energy crisis

Myanmar has the lowest per capita energy consumption in Asia. Only 34% of
people have access to electricity in the country, and it is as low as 16% in
rural areas. Even areas connected to the national grid face increasing
blackouts as demand outstrips supply. Myanmar's large gas and oil reserves
are being piped for export to China and Thailand so an obvious solution is
to tap its vast potential hydro resources - particularly on the Irrawaddy
and the Salween rivers that flow down from the Himalayan glaciers.

So far the country has only developed about 3,000 MW of hydropower, but has
46,000 MW worth of projects in the pipeline, according to the Ministry of
Energy and Electricity. The government has set an ambitious goal to reach
100% electrification by 2030 and third of new capacity will be provided by
large dams, with the rest from natural gas, coal and a little from
renewables.

Toxic legacy - problems with hydropower

The previous military government signed deals with foreign investors -
mainly from China and Thailand - to develop at least 50 more dams, many of
which will produce power for export to neighbouring countries.

There are a number of major problems with Myanmar's dam plans. First, the
most lucrative hydro spots identified lie in the country's rugged periphery
- home to ethnic minorities and where prolonged fighting between the
military and armed groups have perpetuated one of the world's longest
running civil wars. So far these projects have been led by the military with
no public consultation or participation, causing forced displacement and
bringing no benefits to local people.

Dams are simply stoking further conflict. "The Burmese army is trying to use
the dam as a tool against the ethnic population," says Saw Tha Phoe a
campaigner with Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN).
Violence erupted again at the Hatgyi dam site on the Salween River after the
project was given the green light as part of the energy master plan in
August 2016. More than 6,000 people fled their homes and are still waiting
for emergency aid.

Second, projects have been identified by foreign and private developers
without carrying out proper risk assessments. As a result many of these
large dams are planned on the mainstem of rivers, where they will cause the
most environmental damage, or in areas of high earthquake risk.

Third, these projects offer a terrible deal for Myanmar. Under many of the
contracts 90% of the electricity will be exported to neighbouring China and
Thailand - power that Myanmar so desperately needs. Harvard economist David
Dapice calls these contracts "unequal and almost colonial in nature," in a
recent paper, pointing out Myanmar is getting a far worse deal even than
Nepal and Laos from private hydropower developers.

Strategic review offers new hope

A fundamental overhaul of the way hydro is built is desperately needed. The
International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank,
is supporting a government led strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of
the hydropower sector - the first of its kind in Myanmar. Some observers
hope it will encourage the government to scrutinise projects and ensure
developers adhere to international standards of practice in the hydropower
sector and beyond.

"There has been no consideration of environment and social impacts in
decisions about the energy mix," says Kate Lazarus, team lead of the IFC's
hydro advisory programme. "Some projects have not even considered
economics."

"The SEA is groundbreaking for Myanmar, both as the first Strategic
Environment Assessment but also as a holistic look at the proposed portfolio
of hydropower projects" says Vicky Bowman, director of the Myanmar Centre
for Responsible Business. "It's important that everyone with an interest
makes an input. The expert analysis can be used as leverage to shift from
the shelf to the bin those projects which are very high risk, and obviously
contributing to ongoing conflict."

Even Myanmar's military elite has identified the risks. In 2013, former
general and then president, Thein Sein suspended the controversial Myitsone
dam - the largest of a cascade of seven dams on the Irrawaddy to be built
and financed by China - in the face of countrywide protest.

After coming to power, Aung San Suu Kyi established a commission to give a
final verdict on the dam in November 2016 - but the public is still waiting.
While the project is widely condemned, a cancellation would throw up thorny
questions on how to compensate companies involved in this and the myriad
other large dam projects.

If it is cancelled, there is widespread fear among civil society that
development will simply shift from the Irrawaddy to the Salween river -
Asia's last largely free flowing river - where dams have also been met with
fierce opposition and mired in conflict. (China's decision to suspend dams
on the upper Salween -where the river is known as the Nu -raises further
questions over the role of Chinese companies in developing destructive dams
downstream).

"Rather than giving a green or red light on specific projects", says Lazarus
from the IFC, the strategic review will provide a "bird's eye review" of
Myanmar's river basins and a "tool to make better decisions and planning.and
stop the government choosing projects that will get blocked."

Community resistance

Not everyone is convinced. A coalition of community groups under the Burma
Rivers Network boycotted IFC consultations claiming the workshops "are
simply the latest move by international investors to initiate large scale
hydropower projects on Burma's rivers against the long-expressed wishes of
local communities engulfed in civil war."

"What we are calling for is a moratorium on dams", says Saw Tha Phoe, who is
leading KESAN's campaign against the dams on the Salween. Locals displaced
by the Myitsone dam staged protests outside an IFC meeting in Myitkyina on
the Irrawaddy basin in early February, also demanding a halt on projects
until the fighting in Kachin has stopped.

Some civil society groups have little faith in the government led review
process. "Consultation is not happening," says Saw Tha Phoe. "People in Shan
state haven't seen the Kunlong Environmental Impact Assessment- [the Chinese
company] Hanergy, the consultants and the Ministry have failed to follow
national law." Since 2012 developers required under Myanmar law to consult
with local communities, carry out EIA's and make them publically available.
The approval of the Kunlong EIA - another major dam on the Salween River -
came as a surprise to some civil society representatives attending an IFC
workshop in Yangon last month.

People from affected communities attending an IFC workshop voiced similar
concerns. They described the confusion about where and when dams would be
built, the grabbing of cropland and the surge of illegal logging and
pollution from mining around dam sites. "We're not against dams. We need
electricity" said one civil society representative from Bago region, "but
please listen to local people."

Local control over resources

KESAN have a more radical suggestion: to set aside 5,200 square kilometres
to create a conservation peace park around the planned Hatgyi dam site,
protected by local ethnic Karen groups.

"The idea of the Salween peace park is to integrate federal democracy,
environmental conservation and cultural heritage," says John Bright of KESAN
who has been involved in drawing up a peace park charter in consultation
with local communities and the Karen National Union. He explains the
community could continue to live in one of the world's most biodiverse
regions and build small hydropower projects for local sustainable energy.

A growing environmental movement?

Wider popular sentiment is growing against large power projects. At a Green
Energy Forum in Yangon in December 420 environmental NGOs called for a
complete halt to coal power plants and mega hydropower dams and for the
government to focus instead on distributed solar and wind.

Critics say that, given the size and the geography of the country, the
government and donors won't meet the ambitious 100% electrification goal by
concentrating on large hydropower and extending the national grid. It will
take too long and won't help people in remote areas, says Aung Myint the
secretary of the Renewable Energy Association of Myanmar (REAM).

Centralised grids and large dams are technology hangovers from the last
century and other countries are shifting their approach, Aung Myint argues.
"We want to focus on a decentralized grid - to create jobs and small
investment to grow later," he says. Many of the 70% of people who are
officially documented as "off grid" have built their own small-scale energy
solutions - such as diesel generators, solar battery packs and small-scale
hydropower or buying power unofficially across the border from China and
Thailand.

"This is a very critical moment to move our country in a green direction.
With technology improvement we can "leapfrog" using our existing
electrification," he says. REAM and WWF have set out their future vision of
how 100% renewable energy is possible by 2050 in a report published late
last year - but it is short on details.

Even those that support hydropower development are calling for a major
rethink how these projects are implemented. "We need hydropower to give
people a future but the previous government [did] this the wrong way by
making contracts with Myanmar that give 90% of power to China and only 10%
to Myanmar," says U Win Aung, director of the Myanmar Environment Innovation
Fund.

"China and Myanmar need to sit down and think about how to change the
agreements to give Myanmar a better share of the profits and more benefits
and opportunities for the people."

Government inertia

One way to get better hydropower deals for Myanmar and the environment is by
setting up a competitive bidding process that will overcome vested
interests, says Vikram Kumar, Myanmar country manager at the IFC. But the
new government is struggling to do this.

Reform of the telecoms sector is one shining example in Myanmar where market
liberalisation allowed foreign companies to break the state monopoly,
transforming the market, with mobile connectivity rates jumping from about
10-80% in a few years.

"In the power sector opportunities are being lost because of lack of focus,"
says Kumar. "The government has no master plan - no grid development plan.
The absence of this is a huge challenge. Even where there are regulations
execution is the problem."

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Link to Original Article:
https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/03/14/myanmars-toxic-legacy-of-large-dams/

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com