The Mekong

The four member countries of the Mekong River Commission today confronted predictions of social and environmental disaster if damming and other development projects in the region are allowed to proceed as planned. The warnings, contained in a 3,600-page report prepared by the MRC Council, point ...

Presented with “frightening” possibilities due to intense damming, the leaders of the Mekong River Commission member countries gave little sign Thursday they had heeded calls to fundamentally rethink water policy for the shared waterway, with the exception of Vietnam. Keep reading ...

As hydropower projects continue to be built along the Mekong mainstream, fishing communities living near the Tonle Sap river in Cambodia say their way of life is already changing. Keep reading ...

Beijing’s spending on hydropower projects is welcomed by many poorer Southeast Asian countries, but it comes with a huge environmental and social cost, experts say. Keep reading ...

China’s hydro ambitions are on the verge of killing Mekong River, says a report. A report published by the Lowy Institute says that biodiversity and precious resources of the Mekong are increasingly under danger because of the rush to construct dams on one of the ...

Floating villages spread across the surface of the Mekong River’s waterways, playing host to ethnic Vietnamese whose status in Cambodian society is perpetually adrift. Keep reading ...

In September 1957, representatives from the four countries in the lower Mekong basin met in Bangkok to take the first steps towards cooperative development and management of their shared water resources. The agreement they signed established the Mekong Committee, the predecessor of the Mekong River ...

Amid worry about the impact hydropower dams are having on the economically and environmentally critical Mekong River, leaders of four Southeast Asian nations dependent on its waters are scheduled to convene a summit early next month to reaffirm their “political commitment” to a 1995 cooperative ...

The Lancang-Mekong Environmental Protection Center has been inaugurated in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province. The center aims to deepen cooperation in environmental protection between the six countries along the river, known in China as the Lancang River. Keep reading ...

The 2018 Salween Studies Research Workshop gathered researchers and experts from around the world on 26 & 27 February at the University of Yangon, Myanmar to discuss the present situation of this important river as well as the future of the basin, its people and ...