BLESSED AND CURSED RIVER

Israel has control over the headwaters of the Jordan River and holds the rights to use
the groundwater in the Jordan River Basin. The diversion of water from Jordan to new
wide-ranging cultivated fields in the Negev Desert has ruined Middle Jordan, and seriously
damaged the Dead Sea.

Palestinians in the West Bank have no access to the Jordan and are prohibited from drilling
new wells. In addition to having considerable water supply for irrigation, every Israeli
has about 341 liters per day of good quality water for urban and industrial uses, while each
Palestinian barely have access to 60 liters per day of poor-quality water for the same uses,
resulting in survival issues and serious health problems.

Text: Marisancho Menjón
Photography: Stefano Serra, Laurent Weyl and Dieter Telemans

FLOODING EDEN

The Pharaonic Project in the Southeast of Antolia, (GAP) planned by the Turkish government
since the 1960s, consists of the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants in the
Tigris valley, proclaimed as the base of development of the Kurdistan. However the Kurdish
people denounce the plan as a strategic plan to further disperse them and cause massive
displacement.

The Ilisu Dam, currently under construction, will be the second largest in the country.
Around 78,000 people would be displaced, mostly Kurds. The dam will flood 68 villages in
addition to the 10,000-year-old culturally significant city of Hasankeyf; create serious
ecological and socio-economic problems; and disrupt the flow of water downstream to Syria
and Iraq.

However, the international campaign against the Ilisu Dam continue to denounce the lack of
input from affected communities, failure of its proponents to consider other alternatives
and the serious social and cultural damage it would cause, such as the lack of an adequate
relocation plan and just compensation for the displaced people.

Texts: Anna Irving and Marisancho Menjón
Photography: Micah Garen/Four Corners Media and Christian Kaiser

DO WÂBURA,
GOODBYE RIVER

The Urrá I hydroelectric dam on the Sinu River submerged 7,400 hectares and displaced tens
of thousands of people, including the Embera-Katío indigenous communities. The dam has reduced
the fishing potential of the Sinu from 6,000 to 1,700 tons per year, harming the livelihoods
and nutrition of tens of thousands of people.

Several indigenous leaders who fought against the project were assassinated or forced into
internal exile. The Sinu River and the Embera-Katío are threatened by the construction of a
second and much larger dam. Fortunately in June 2009 the government rejected the environmental
license for this dam.

Texts: Conchita Guerra and Marisancho Menjón
Photography: Conchita Guerra

The desiccation of the Indus Delta is one of the world’s most underreported ecological disasters. A vast complex of massive dams, barrages, and irrigation canals has drastically reduced the flow of the Indus, causing seawater intrusion into the delta, contaminating drinking water and killing off vegetation and fish stocks.

The shrinking of the delta – by as much as 90% – has seriously harmed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people.

Israel has control over the headwaters of the Jordan River and holds the rights to use the groundwater in the Jordan River Basin, 80% of which is under Israel-controlled territory. The transfer of the Jordan to the Negev Desert to supply crops for export has ended up ruining the Middle Jordan River, which now runs dry and salty, and which has led to irreparable damages to the Dead Sea. The Palestinian population has no access to the Jordan and are prohibited from drilling new wells in the aquifers. While every Israeli has 304 cubic meters of water per year, the Palestinians have less than 80, which has led to serious health and subsistence problems

One of the greatest atrocities ever committed against residents evicted by the construction of a dam was the massacre of 450 people living on the Río Negro. The Chixoy Dam was built on the lands of Guatemala’s indigenous Maya Achí people in the midst of the country’s brutal civil war. Faced with the population’s refusal to abandon their lands, the authorities began a campaign of terror that ended with their death and torture. The survivors now live in new relocated communities that lack adequate livelihoods.

Over the past decade, the communities have struggled to recover the bodies of their loved ones and to pressure the Guatemalan government and the dam’s funders to provide reparations for the damages they have suffered.