AGUA RÍOS Y PUEBLOS

Large Dams and Forced Displacement

LARGE DAMSIn 2000, the World Commission on Dams presented its final report. Despite having the participation of governments, organizations for affected peoples, and hundreds of experts, the Commission acknowledged its inability to specify the number of displaced persons but ended up estimating that between 40 and 80 million people had been evicted from their homes and lands. In other words, no one knows the exact number.  This human suffering has gone unseen, silenced by the consensus that has too often justified destructive water policies in the name of progress.In many cases, the population was not even consulted. Their losses have rarely been compensated. Resettlement camps have extremely poor living conditions (overcrowding, lack of potable water, electricity, human services…), the soils are poor and fishing has disappeared. The resulting social and cultural impacts increase these communities’ vulnerability, especially in the case of indigenous communities. This situation generates extreme poverty, hunger and poor sanitation for affected peoples.

“THE EARTH IS NOT FOR SALE”

Since 2003, a grassroots movement of mostly poor peasant farmers in the Mexican state of Guerrero, called the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to La Parota (CECOP), has successfully resisted construction of a large hydroelectric dam. If built, La Parota Dam would cause the displacement of some 25,000 people, and flood at least 17,000 hectares of fertile farmland and old-growth forest, depriving thousands of farmers of their livelihoods. The dam would have an irreversible ecological impact on the region and potentially cause public health problems related to poor water quality. CECOP’s opposition to the dam has been met with intimidation and human rights abuses, including assassinations of community leaders.

“NO MONEY, NO POWER”

British colonial authorities evicted more than 57,000 Gwembe Tonga people in the 1950s to make way for the Kariba Reservoir, one of the world’s largest. Eight villagers were shot and at least 32 wounded by police during the poorly conceived and trauma-ridden effort to clear the Tonga from their lands. Half a century after the dam was built, the Tonga remain mired in extreme poverty. Today, their remote resettlement sites are marred by low and erratic rainfall, poor soils and tsetse fly infestations. Tonga organizations are now pushing the Zimbabwean and Zambian governments and the World Bank to provide reparations for decades of suffering.

The Kariba Dam, largely funded by the World Bank, was built mainly to provide electricity to copper mines in present-day Zambia, and the growing industrial belt around the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. By contrast the Gwembe Tonga, whose ancestors have been living along the Zambezi for at least several thousand years, receive neither electricity from the dam’s huge hydropower plants nor water from the massive reservoir.

“FAREWELL TO PARADISE”

Yacyretá Dam stretches for more than five km across the floodplain of the Paraná River, inundating more than 500 square km. The project, still not complete, has already evicted some 40,000 people from their homes. Few have been properly compensated for their losses. Many were moved to houses in resettlement colonies that had begun to fall apart even before they were completed. The project was famously described by former Argentinean President Carlos Menem as a “monument to corruption.” Despite well-documented allegations that companies and politicians siphoned off public funds during Yacyretá’s construction, no one has ever been brought to justice.

At present, those affected are still struggling to raise awareness about their plight. The authorities have intimidated people resisting evictions by sending paramilitary forces into communities and burning homes. Nevertheless, communities continue to demonstrate against the planned raising of the reservoir, which threatens an additional 80,000 people and would mean the loss of 200,000 hectares of cropland and the destruction of an area of global ecological importance.

MONSTER DAM, MONSTER PROBLEMS

THREE GORGES DAM • CHINA

The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s ultimate pharaonic megaproject. The project sets records for the number of people displaced; at least 1.3 million, number of cities and towns flooded; 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages, and length of reservoir; more than 630 km (363 miles).

The situation is especially bad for displaced farmers: many of them have received just a fraction of the compensation they were promised. Project opponents have been intimidated, beaten up and imprisoned for demanding fair compensation. Massive landslides triggered by the rising reservoir have killed hundreds and forced the evacuation of 70,000 people.
Scientists predict that by trapping nutrients in river sediments, the dam could reduce annual fish catches in the East China Sea by 100 million tonnes. The submergence of hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps, and the presence of massive industrial and population centers upstream, are turning the reservoir into a toxic soup of sewage.

In late 2007, the Chinese government admitted for the first time that the dam could cause an environmental “catastrophe.” Yet, the Government continues to repress any criticisms and demand of compensation for the affected population.

Photograps: Pierre Montavon, Steven Benson y Luo Wen Da

SAVE THE NARMADA
SARDAR SAROVAR DAM • INDIA

The Narmada River, one of the most important rivers in India, is being seriously harmed by the construction of dozens of dams. The most notorious of these dam projects, Sardar Sarovar, is flooding tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land and forests and evicting more than 200,000 people. Once deprived of their rights and traditional livelihoods, the displaced are condemned to hunger, poverty, and debt and forced to move to resettlement camps without decent drinking water, adequate farmland, or forests for collecting timber, firewood and wild vegetables and medicines.

The farmers facing evictions and many outside supporters have led an epic struggle against these dams under the banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA – Save the Narmada Movement). The NBA has inspired many others worldwide who are fighting against dams and other megaprojects that uproot communities and destroy the environment in the name of an outdated, authoritarian concept of progress. Sadly, many communities have lost the struggle to stay on their lands and are now fighting against the callousness, incompetence and corruption of authorities who continue to deny them adequate compensation, rehabilitation, dignity and justice.

Photographs: Karen Robinson

“WHEN BEING POSITIVE MEANS – SAYING NO”

In light of the region’s worst drought in 100 years and the resulting severe water restrictions, the Traveston Dam was proposed in 2006 to transfer water to Brisbane, the state capital and Australia’s fastest growing region. Critics of the proposal suspected political expediency, given that an election was due in the midst of a major water crisis. However, the problem was not a lack of dams but a lack of water (the regions five large reservoirs were at worryingly low levels). The design of the dam, which makes no sense in scientific or economic terms, does not take into account future climate change that would decrease its capacity even further.

The project would inundate 7,000 hectares of fertile farmland and small towns. It would drown all trace of pre-European indigenous occupation. There is strong local opposition to the proposal: more than 20,000 residents have formally protested to halt the dam on a variety of grounds, including the displacement of local communities and environmental impacts. The dam would destroy the remaining habitat for the Australian lungfish, Mary River cod and the Mary River turtle, all threatened with extinction and protected by law.