News
From the Riverbanks of the Salween and Mekong to the Halls of Justice: Women Challenging Mainstream Assumptions and Asserting Collective Rights
Despite experiencing systematic social, economic and cultural marginalization, women like Noon, Dao Prasuk and Pornpimol remain determined to assert their communities’ rights to existence and to protect rivershed commons for generations to come, contesting the widespread public assumptions that large-scale hydropower and water diversion infrastructure ...
Pai Deetes, Phairin Sohsai and Tanya L. Roberts Davis/ IR
Worrying days for the Mekong
Water levels at Southeast Asia’s largest river may be at its lowest levels in a century. Low rainfall, high temperatures and poor dam regulations are contributing to a historic low at the Mekong, affecting the region’s agriculture and fishing industries and leading to rapidly drying taps. Chinese ...
Jason Thomas
Floodwater released by Chinese dam in Cambodia submerges village
Floodwater released by a recently opened Chinese hydroelectric dam in Cambodia has completely submerged a village, the campaign group International Rivers said on Friday (Feb 2). Hundreds of families from five villages in the northern province of Stung Treng had moved several months ago to designated ...
Amy Sawitta Lefevre/Simon Cameron-Moore
Dams inevitably result in species decline, losses on reservoir islands
Hydropower development is booming, with controversial projects unfolding across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Though often presented as a green renewable energy option, dams can cause a litany of negative impacts: disrupting the downstream flow of nutrients, interrupting aquatic migration routes and harming fisheries. They ...
