Khone Falls’ Exhibit Shows What Dams Would Wreck

The exhibition, entitled ‘Khone Falls: Soul of the Mekong’, is a collection of pictures taken over nearly four years by Thai photographer Suthep Kritsansavarin, whose award-winning work has chronicled environmental, social and political issues in South-east Asia for two decades.

“Every few years I come up with the idea for a project, something I’d like to do that is an untold story,” Suthep told IPS at the exhibition’s launch at the Bophana Audio Visual Resource Centre here in September.

“I visited the place in 2000 and was impressed with the landscape. But what I was most impressed with was the way they fished,” he said. “They literally risk their lives fishing on powerful rapids and falls of the river.”

At the Siphandone or Khone Falls area, the Mekong River drops some 20 to 30 metres through a maze of narrow braided channels, or ‘hoo’ in Lao, creating countless small islands before flowing into Cambodia.

Suthep’s pictures include stunning images of local Lao fishers using ropes and narrow bamboo bridges to scramble across bone-crushing white water rapids and dramatic waterfalls, where they lay string nets and other fishing devices.

“The two big challenges were how to photograph this without being killed and how to get close to the people,” he laughs.

The first challenge was overcome with the help of rock-climbing equipment and long periods spent watching how the locals do it.

Personal contacts arranged by a friend in the hospitality industry in the southern Lao town of Pakse facilitated his introduction to the local people.

Suthep believes he photographed nearly ever channel during the process of his work, starting in early 2004 and continuing over numerous visits, the last of which was in August 2007.

His pictures are particularly topical given than the lifestyle and traditions of fishers on the Khone Falls are now under threat from the development of a controversial hydropower project, the Don Sahong dam.

While the locals told Suthep the dam has been in the works for over a decade, it was only earlier this year that the Lao government publicly announced its intention to press ahead with plans to build the dam.

It is the most advanced of eight hydropower projects proposed on the lower Mekong mainstream.

In February, Malaysian engineering firm Mega First Corp signed a development agreement with Vientiane to develop the scheme on a build-own-operate basis.

The dam, which will have a capacity of between 240 and 360 megawatts, will block Hoo Sahong, the deepest channel on Khone Falls section of the river and only one migratory fish can easily pass through at the peak of the dry season, April to May, when the water level of the Mekong is at its lowest.

The dam has generated widespread opposition in Cambodia and internationally because it will effectively block the dry-season migration of fish between the feeding habitats of the Tonle Sap and upstream breeding zones in Laos and Thailand.

It is also likely to alter water flow patterns in the immediate downstream area, further disrupting migration patterns for fish species sensitive to changes in water levels.

According to a June 2007 briefing paper by the Phnom Penh-based World Fish Centre, the Khone Falls supports at least 201 fish species, as well as one of the few remaining concentrations of fresh water dolphins in the Mekong.

Although the developers have said the feasibility and social and environmental studies of the proposed Don Sahong Project show it to be technically and financially viable, these have not been publicly released.

“In the absence of detailed design information, it is not possible to provide a full assessment of the impact of the proposed Don Sahong dam on the Mekong basin fisheries,” the World Fish Centre brief stated, although “this review of available information shows that the risks are very high”.

The loss of even small percentage of Cambodia’s fisheries catch represents tens of thousands of tonnes and millions of dollars worth of fish.

As well as its impact on fisheries, the dam will change the generations old lifestyle and practices of the communities around the Khone Falls.

“The people in the area tell me they have been fishing like they have for three to four generations,” says Suthep. “Their technologies and knowledge of the river is fascinating.”

His pictures document the innovative use nets and other mechanisms to catch fish, including ‘li’ or pipe nets that are put in water at the mouth of the channel, as well as nets specifically designed to catch fish thrown backwards by the force of the rapids.

“A lot of people used to fish like this in Thailand, using similar equipment, but the development of our nation’s rivers mean you rarely see it now,” says Suthep. “I’m afraid the Dong Sahong project could spell the end of this in Laos too.”

According to Suthep, the local people already maintain fisheries have declined in overall numbers, size and diversity of catch over the last ten years,

 “They say 20 years ago they did not need to fish every day. They only had to do it once a week. Now they have to do it much more regularly to survive,” he adds.

One species Suthep is particularly interested in is the giant Mekong catfish. Already extinct in the China section of the river, this species is thought to be under threat in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.

 The exhibition includes several photographs of a giant catfish caught in the Khone Falls area.
 
“We do not understand yet their migration patterns, including how they travel north,” explains Suthep.  “It is possible they travel from Cambodia’s Tonle Sap to Northern Thailand to spawn. If this is true, the only channel is Don Sahong.”

Suthep maintains the local people have mixed views about the dam. “Some people are against it because they know the fish will decline and they will be forced to find another job.” Declining fisheries is already leading young people from the Khone Falls area to work in Thailand.

“Others are happy because they have been told they will get electricity,” he explains.

“Whatever the case, because of the closed nature of Laos’ political system the local people opposed can only talk about it amongst their families,” Suthep continues. “Government officials have visited the area three or four times to inform the local people about what is happening. There has been no debate.”

Informed sources claim that Don Sahong project was the subject of intense discussion in many sections of the government until this was shut down after the signing of the project development agreement in February.

International NGOs have also reportedly been warned off discussing the project.

International fisheries scientists and Cambodian NGOs have expressed concerns about the dams down stream impacts.

Earlier this year, Cambodian groups called upon their government to ask Laos for an immediate construction moratorium on Dong Sahong to allow for an independent transboundary assessment of environmental and social impacts.

This opposition, as well as qualms within certain sections of the Phnom Penh government, have been undercut by the decision to move ahead with their own mainstream hydropower project, the Sambor dam in the central Cambodian province of Kratie.