“With dams, builders win and both native and fisherpeople lose”

McCully complains that the construction of big dams is often accompanied by Human-rights abuses

Sergi Forcada

Patrick McCully is the executive director of International Rivers Network, an organization that works to protect rivers and defend the rights of communities that depend on them. This group struggles against the construction of big dams, which have caused more than 50 millions of displacement over the world. According to International Rivers Network, damns are responsible of 4% of global warming.

The World Commission on Dams (WCD) estimated that 40 to 80 million people have been displaced by dams. The number of people displaced is huge, but not that specific. Why?

The number is not more exact as the dam industry has never kept track on how many people have been evicted because of its activities. No countries have complete data sets of how many people have been evicted by dams in their territory. It is difficult to be more specific than the WCD, although improved data from China since the WCD released its assessment means that the global number is unlikely to be less than 50 million.

Where can we find the worst areas in the world regarding this subject?

Dams have been built throughout the world, so the damage done by dams is extremely widespread. The most dramatic impacts are probably those upon inland seas, deltas and estuaries. The Aral Sea in Central Asia has famously almost completely dried up because of diversions of water by dams upstream. Major rivers such as the Indus, Nile, Yellow and Colorado often fail to reach the sea because of upstream diversions. The results include subsidence of delta land, coastal erosion, destruction of fisheries, species extinctions, and great hardship to coastal farmers and fisherpeople.

According to your writings, it is not reckless to say that big dams have proved to be instruments of mass destruction…

Yes, because dams have caused mass destruction in terms of major ecosystem damage over huge areas and large-scale social disruption.

Is the construction of big dams often accompanied by Human-rights abuses?

Yes. People will almost always oppose being kicked off their land. And will people have resisted large dams, governments have often responded with threats, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and violence. Probably the most brutal case happened during Guatemala’s civil war in the 1980s. Mayan villagers threatened with evictions by the Chixoy Dam were punished with the massacre of more than 400 people, the majority of them women and children.

As you have said in one of your articles, “Big dams are plain bad”. Then, why are governments still in favor of their construction?

Big dams are bad for many people, but can be very good for politicians and certain business sectors. The main “winners” from dams – construction and engineering companies, big landowners, agribusiness – are wealthy and politically powerful, the “losers,” – small farmers, indigenous people, fishing communities, are often poor and politically marginalized. Dams are extremely expensive, often costing hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars. This means that dams provide huge benefits to construction, engineering and electrical equipment companies as well as to armies of consultants on issues such as environmental and social impacts. Banks make money from the huge loans involved, and government water, power and irrigation ministries receive big boosts to their budgets. Politicians often like dams because they steer huge government contracts toward companies in their home constituencies and because dams can be a lucrative source of bribes. The infrastructure sector is extremely corrupt worldwide due to the massive amounts of money involved.

With the population growing and, therefore, with an increment of electricity and water demands, are not dams a necessary evil that we must accept for our greater future?

There are now, fortunately, many options for power supply. First, there is a huge potential everywhere to use energy more efficiently. Second, renewable energies such as wind, solar, geothermal, are now technologically advanced and frequently cost-competitive. In the water sector there is also huge scope for using water more efficiently and for environmentally friendly and effective technologies such as harvesting rainwater and recycling waste water.

Is the green image of hydropower as a benign alternative to fossil fuels, false?

Dams produce dirty energy. They destroy rivers and communities. And, especially in the tropics, can cause huge emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane.

However, is there a possible dam that critics might consider plausible?

Smaller dams built with community participation and proper consideration of environmental impacts can be considered benign. Large numbers of small dams, however, can do large damage to small rivers.

If big dams are the problem, what can we consider as a solution? How can we create the same amount of electricity without the environmental damage that large dams create?

Energy efficiency. Solar power. Wind power. Geothermal power. Emerging non-dam hydropower technologies such as wave power, “hydrokinetic” dam-free turbines in rivers and tidal stream turbines offshore, are also promising.

You have worked on numerous campaigns to stop the impacts of destructive dams. Do you find campaigning to stop the construction of dams still worthwhile even after losing a battle against a construction of a big dam?

Yes it is important to fight dams. In the past year, public protests have helped halt destructive dams in places including Mexico, Colombia, Australia and El Salvador. Stopping dams saves rivers from destruction and prevents communities being destroyed.  Even when a dam fight is lost, the “victory” for the dam-builders may prove to be Pyrrhic. Protracted opposition to dams causes delays and raises costs for the dam builders, increases public consciousness about the problems with dams, and makes governments and funders more cautious about trying to build dams in future and more likely to support non-dam options for meeting needs for energy, water and protection from floods.