The controversial 400 MW Lower Sesan 2 dam in Northeastern Cambodia resumed construction in March 2015, after being suspended in late 2014 due to community and NGO opposition. In this article, Mai Lan meets the communities whose lives are disrupted, and discusses with local civil society the consequences of the project.
Thailand’s electricity utility may be complicit in human rights violations in Myanmar’s Salween dams
Questions are being raised about the complicity of Thailand’s state-run power utility – EGAT under the Ministry of Energy – in serious human rights violations in the building of the massive US$10 billion Mong Ton (formerly called the Tasang) dam in the Upper Salween River in Myanmar.
Youth in the Mekong Delta voice concerns about climate change
Vietnam’s Mekong Delta faces serious problems from climate change as it will exacerbate existing ecological problems including water pollution, salinity intrusion and biodiversity. A group of young people living in the Delta remind us of the area’s food and fish productivity, its importance for people both in Vietnam and globally, and the urgent need to find solutions to climate change.
The politics of place naming reaches the Salween River
The debate about the power of naming is long-running and contentious, engaging citizens and colonizers, academics and activists. “South” of China, “East” of India, Southeast Asia is a name that came primarily from people not native to these regions who instead imagined the region through acts of war and nation building.
Growing food forests along the Ou River in Lao PDR
Khmu youths and villagers living along the Ou River in Luang Prabang Province, Northern Lao PDR have adopted a food forest concept in reforesting the river’s banks that in recent years have been impacted by land erosion. The initiative aims to maintain fragile areas that are important sources of food and thus sustain community food security.