Change on the Mighty Mekong

Just after climbing the muddy, five-meter-high banks of the Mekong river near Yuen Sean, a reclusive village in northern Cambodia, a plain, wooden hut appears, its shape and size similar to the dozens of modest homes of the poor fishing families who live here.

Inside awaits a place of worship. Covered by curtains, whose orange has faded from the beams of sunlight shining through the planks, a glass casket lies in the middle of the hut. It’s the final resting place of a rare Irrawaddy freshwater dolphin, its spine, vertebrae and bulky skull assembled as if it were an ancient fossil.

The Irrawaddy dolphin is so rare and sensational to Cambodians that they believe the bumpy-headed gray mammal used to be human. Hundreds of years ago, the folk tale goes, a young girl who was pursued by an evil force sought help from the mighty Mekong. In answering her prayers, the Mekong turned the girl into a dainty river creature, able to escape her pursuers in the stream. This was the birth of the dolphin, villagers like Morn Da believe.

“Folk tales tell us that the dolphins originated from human beings, so that’s part of the reason why we love and care for the dolphins like human beings,” said the 27-year-old fisherman, who lives next to the shrine in Yeun Sean village.

“Their head looks like our heads, and they feed their babies the way we do. That’s why we love and care for the dolphins like they were human beings,” Da said.

The dolphin body that swept up on the shores of Yeun Sean village several years ago wasn’t disposed of, but carefully taken out of the dense, flooded forest, washed and placed into this handmade casket amid Buddha statues, golden cones and spires.

Da said that he’s used to seeing the mammals from when he was a child, but that their numbers have dwindled. Over a 100-mile stretch between the southern tip of Laos and northern Cambodia, 85 remaining dolphins have formed six habitats, or dolphin pools, that will remain their home until they perish.

“Pressures on the Mekong dolphins are immense,” said Chhith Sam Ath, the Cambodia country director for the animal preservation group the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Changes in the river’s hydrology and fish population, possible chemical spills, and even infanticide among the dolphins are considered likely reasons for their decline.

Rapid Development

The biggest threat to the dolphin population – as well as traditional ways of life along the river – is the region’s rapid development. Mainland Southeast Asia needs energy, and the Mekong holds bountiful promise. The river’s potential for hydropower is enormous, but remains largely untapped.

Experts say the construction of large-scale hydropower projects along the river would irreversibly change the hydrology of the Mekong and critically impact its biodiversity. In areas adjacent to dolphin pools, the use of excavators and explosives needed to prepare the riverbed could kill the dolphins – and then a dearth of fish making it past the dams would starve the rest.

As long as the dolphins survive there is hope, Sam Ath said, but the dolphins are also “an important indicator of the health and sound management of the freshwater resources, and their decline could signal a potentially devastating decline in the health of the entire river ecosystem.”

A remarkable 1,100 species have been found to live in the Mekong’s waters so far, making it the world’s second most biodiverse river, after the Amazon. Its unique location in the tropics, a vast river basin, and a large, seasonal change in water flows has created a diverse ecosystem that fosters this biodiversity. Experts believe that hundreds more species could be teeming in remote areas of these murky, 2,700 mile-long waters, undiscovered, and unknown to the human eye.

Some of the river’s species are smaller than a fingernail, while specimens like the Giant Mekong Catfish can grow to be around 9 feet long and weigh 650 pounds – the size of a grizzly bear.

Dam developers along the Mekong have promised to mitigate the impact of their projects by installing fish passages and ladders. With fish sizes as diverse as those in the Mekong, environmentalists don’t believe they will work.

Particularly, more than 100 species migrate distances of up to 700 miles to reach spawning grounds high enough to guarantee the survival of their offspring; with dams in place, some fish may struggle to reach their spawning grounds. If these species lay their eggs farther down the Mekong, annual floods would wash them through Vietnam’s Mekong Delta and into the South China Sea. The chances of survival would be minimal.

But a look at Yeun Sean village, where fisherman Da lives with his wife and two children, reveals how much development is needed along the Mekong. Roads don’t exist, mobile reception is spotty, and electricity comes at an exorbitant $1 per KW – more than the fishing families could ever afford. Many of these families make less than $30 a month, some live entirely off what the land and river provide.

For local governments, the Mekong holds the promise of putting this area on the grid – and opens the possibility to produce enough electricity for exports, too.

The Battery of Southeast Asia

Laos is aiming to become the battery of Southeast Asia. According to the Lao government, 14 hydropower plants have been built so far, and about 30 more are planned or under construction. Laos is already selling electricity to neighboring Thailand and Vietnam, and has agreed to supply each country with 7,000MW and 5,000MW by 2020, respectively. A similar agreement with Cambodia is underway, said Viraphonh Viravong, vice minister of energy and mines.

“Laos is looking to expand power grid interconnections to facilitate export of power to Cambodia, China, Thailand and Vietnam, first on project-by-project basis and, ultimately, realizing integrated development goals and operations under the GMS (Greater Mekong Subregion) and ASEAN,” he said, adding that Laos plans to generate 12,500MW – up from the 3,000MW it produces now.

Politicians see the Mekong as vital for generating national income, but it is equally vital for the livelihoods of an estimated 60 million people. In Da’s village, the river dictates life. Water from the Mekong is used for cooking, drinking and washing, it is also used to feed the handful of chicken and ducks kept in the village. Livestock is kept for eggs; only old and weak animals are culled for consumption. On most days, it’s the catch from the river that feeds the families of Yeun Sean. Across Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, fish is the main source of fat and protein for rural populations. According to a survey by Cambodia’s Fisheries Administration, fish make up almost 40 percent of average protein intake, and 28 percent of fat intake in the country. Like rice, fish is a staple of the Southeast Asian diet that cannot be replaced.

One dam at a time, local communities, supported by NGOs, are fighting for the river’s future. In the case of the controversial Xayaburi Dam, the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam sided with the local communities, and stood up against their fellow Mekong River Commission (MRC) member Laos, while Thailand remained silent. The MRC was created to find multilateral solutions on governing the shared river between all four countries. Under the commission’s treaty, projects with a large environmental impact on downstream countries should undergo a prior consultation process.

In 2012, however, Laos decided to go ahead with the 1,285MW dam – a failure of the MRC, observers said. The Xayaburi Dam is scheduled to be operational in four years.

This series of events has repeated itself with the Don Sahong Dam – a dam that Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia program director of International Rivers, described as being planned on the worst imaginable spot. In southern Laos’ 4,000 islands area, the Mekong splits into dozens of channels. Only one, the Hou Sahong, allows for fish to migrate up and downstream in both the wet and dry seasons.

“This is a place that should remain off-limits to all developers given the important role it plays.... As a result, the people of the Mekong region and internationally have overwhelmingly spoke out against this dam,” Trandem said.

More than 250,000 people signed a petition to stop the dam. Villagers from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam even flew to Malaysia to meet with MegaFirst Berhad, the company constructing the Don Sahong Dam. The environmental impact of the dam far outweighs the 256MW it would produce, they said.

Once again, Laos threw caution to the wind. Ground would be broken on the dam early this year, the government announced recently. The WWF believes that the construction work would almost certainly kill the northernmost Irrawaddy dolphin pool, and have devastating impacts for pools further downstream. Fish populations, too, would dwindle as a result of the dam.

The future of the world’s largest inland fishery has become a complex interplay of high politics and business interests – a play in which people like Da are little more than an extra.

Da says that he’s worried over the future of his two boys, who are growing up in an area too remote to attend school, leaving them with few options but to become fishermen. Will there be enough fish left to support their livelihoods? At least they’ve seen dolphins – the mysterious creatures that used to be human, and still resemble us in so many ways, Da said.

“I feel that dolphins are as valuable as humans,” he said, adding that villagers still frequently light incense to honor the mammal’s bones in the casket.

We are concerned that someday the dolphins will be gone, and then people won’t believe that they existed. But here, this shrine will be the proof for the next generation: We had dolphins here,” he said.