The Dams on the Salween River: Useful Links

Some more information and links for those interested in my story in this morning's paper about the campaign by the Karen and Karenni people of eastern Burma against the proposed dams on the Salween River - 'Sold down the river: tribe's home to be a valley of the dammed'.

The best source on the web is www.salweenwatch.org (although this has been crashing on me - is anyone else having this problem?). I can still access the PDF of the recent report on the dams, by a group of Karenni NGOs, 'Dammed by Burma's Generals'.

The Southeast Asia Rivers Network (SEARIN) has also done a lot of work on the subject, both in Thailand-Burma and on the upper stretches of the Salween in China, where it is known as the Nu. Their website has the PDF of their 2004 report ''The Salween Under Threat: Damming the Longest Free River in Southeast Asia'.

Comments

[Tim]

I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' remark about mankind's insane passion to build dams that devastate the environment, and then turn out not to work: "we must have beaver genes or something".

I do think it's piquant that the Bangkok middle classes throw their toys out of the pram when Thaksin does a deal with a Singapore state-run company, but aren't bothered that he's been snuggling up to the squalid 'Myanmar' junta for years.