Could damming the Mekong destroy south-east Asia’s greatest river and food bowl?
Conservationists, politicians and at least one prime minister are warning the quest for hydro power for booming urban centres in China and south-east Asia is threatening the food supply of more than 40 million people, including millions in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s food bowl.
Kraisak Choonhavan, an environmental activist and former chairman of Thailand’s Senate foreign affairs committee, calls the building of the dams “a disaster of epic proportions” that threatens to shatter declarations of unity among member states of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
