Upstream-Downstream

VIENTIANE, Apr 2 (Newsmekong) - On the banks of a remote section of the Mekong River in southern Laos, an area known as Siphandone, villagers quietly debate the question, which is more important to Laos: fisheries or building dams?

PHNOM PENH, Jun 9 (IPS) - An explosion of dam building projects along the Sekong River in Laos, the Mekong river’s largest tributary, is prompting Cambodian and foreign experts to warn of significant downstream impacts and call for new approaches to governing the cross-border issues that arise from the use of the Mekong’s water resources.

PHNOM PENH, Mar 21 (IPS Asia Pacific) - For the government, it represents great economic opportunities. But for non-government organisations and the communities they work, it will come with major social and environmental impacts. Whatever the case, Cambodia is on the threshold of a major experiment with hydropower development.

SYDNEY, Oct 3 (IPS Asia-Pacific) – Over the last decade or so, China’s deft use of soft power has seen South-east Asian neighbours’ view of it change from a looming threat to a largely friendly, if still imposing, giant to the north.

BANGKOK, Nov 14 (IPS Asia-Pacific) - The campaign to save South-east Asia's largest waterway from being blocked by a series of massive dams picked up pace this week, with activists accusing a regional river authority of abandoning its mission to protect the Mekong River.

The arrival of the dry season and the emergence of two mega-dam
projects in China have contributed to the drying up of the Mekong
river, with water levels dropping to less than one metre in many
sections, the 'Bangkok Post' reported on Apr. 1.

BANGKOK, Mar 22 (IPS Asia-Pacific) - A planned survey to check the economic pulse of fishing communities living on the banks of South-east Asia's largest freshwater lake -- the Tonle Sap in Cambodia -- threatens to expose serious shortcomings in an Asian Development Bank (AsDB) anti-poverty initiative.