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DAM-L Message of Hope awaited by the Dammed/LS (fwd)
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Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 13:34:13 -0800
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From: lori@irn.org (Lori Pottinger)
Subject: Message of Hope awaited by the Dammed/LS
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Article printed in the Sunday Independent Newspaper Sunday 24 September 2000
Message of Hope awaited by the Dammed
Liane Greeff
"How can you snatch a river away from one and gift it to another?" The
answer is easily. Dam builders do it all the time. Downstream, the river
does not come, or it comes at the wrong time, or it comes in the form of a
trickle
instead of a torrent. Whether you are an individual farmer on a small river
that represents your lifeline, or whether you are Mozambique and only
receive South Africa's leftovers, the ethics and the issues are the same.
The question was asked by Arundhati Roy in disbelief at the arrogance of the
river thieves in the Narmada Valley of India. Over 100 000 000 people
throughout the world could have asked that same question over the past 100
years, as they lost their land or the river's multitude of services through
resettlement and downstream impacts caused by the construction of large
dams.
This question, in another form - that of individual human rights versus the
greater common good - is one of the central issues of concern being debated
by the World Commission on Dams (WCD), and for which civil society is
anxiously waiting for its verdict. A verdict which implicates the
neo-liberal development paradigm, which promotes large-scale developmental
options at the expense of human centred options, arguably the same approach
which replaces the Reconstruction and Development Programme with GEAR.
The original call for the World Commission on Dams came from dam affected
communities from throughout the world, who gathered in Curitiba, Brazil, in
March 1997 to share their common experiences with regard to the loss of
land, forests and fisheries caused by large dams, as well as their same
fight against vested interests and bureaucracies which left them out of
decision-making processes.
In their vision they called for a "society where human beings and nature are
no longer reduced to the logic of the market where the only value is that of
commodities and the only goal profits. We must advance to a society which
respects diversity, and which is based on equitable and just relations
between people, regions and nations."
To this end they demanded that "an international independent commission [be]
established to conduct a comprehensive review of all large dams financed or
otherwise supported by international aid and credit agencies, and its policy
conclusions implemented".
This request became reality at the World Bank Meeting in Gland Switzerland
where an internal evaluation of World Bank Dams was slammed as being biased
and methodologically flawed. Surprisingly, the World Bank, together with the
World Conservation Union (IUCN), acceded to requests for an independent
study and agreed to put up seed funding (approximately 10% of the overall
budget) for the World Commission on Dams which was to have two overarching
goals. Namely to:
* Review the development effectiveness of dams and assess
alternatives for water resources and energy development
* Develop internationally accepted standards, guidelines and criteria
for decision-making in the planning, design, construction, monitoring,
operation and decommissioning of dams.
South Africa has committed heavily to the WCD process. We have played host
to the Secretariat in Cape Town, our Minister Asmal has chaired the
proceedings of the Commission, and our rivers and dams have provided the
material for pilot studies. We have scientists pioneering studies on the
freshwater requirements for the ecological functioning of rivers, we have
progressive water law which recognises the "ecological rights" of rivers, we
have human rights activists which know more about reparations for past
injustices than most places in the world and our people understand too well
what it means to be resettled.
And we have the dams - dams built under apartheid governments with race
determined compensation packages. In order to ensure that the voices of
affected people in Southern Africa would be heard by the WCD, the
Environmental Monitoring Group, together with the Group for Environmental
Monitoring and the International Rivers network, hosted the Southern African
Hearings for Communities affected by Large Dams in Southern Africa in
November 1999. The Tonga from Zambia and Zimbabwe who were forced off the
land inundated by Kariba Dam, the Basuthu communities resettled by Lesotho
Highlands Water Project, Swazi people currently moving for Maguga Dam, Zulu
communities displaced by Inanda and Woodstock Dams, Xhosa labourers
displaced by Gariep Dam, and Himba representatives who are fighting against
the proposed Epupa Dam. All these community testimonies revealed similar
experiences of broken promises, forced removals, lost livelihoods, scattered
communities, increased HIV, undemocratic decision-making processes, vested
interests and corrupt authorities.
The implications of the WCD is important for Southern Africa - both to
redress issues of the past in the form of reparations as well as for the
future, as the era of dam building is by no means over. Lesotho Highlands
Phase 1B is under construction whilst Phase 2 hangs over our heads like a
specter of future livelihoods lost. Skuifraam Dam is planned for the Western
Cape, Springrove Dam for KwaZulu-Natal, and more in our neighbouring
countries despite the fact that South Africa, in its industrial imperialism
fueled by GEAR, is already using over 80% of Southern Africa's water
resources.
The WCD, represents far more than solely the dams debate. Beyond
acknowledging the injustices of the past, and truly evaluating the costs and
benefits of large dams in social and ecological terms, as well as economic
terms, the global civil society community following this process, is
expecting much more. In an open letter to Minister Asmal, in his role as
Chair of the WCD, the International Committee on Dams, Rivers and People, a
number of strong recommendations were made, which include the following:
* A human rights approach which recognises that no community should be
forced to move, but that they should have the right to negotiate as equal
partners in dam planning and decision making processes, which implies the
right of prior and informed consent. The rights of indigenous, tribal and
traditional people to self-determination and to the preservation of their
resources, cultural heritage and territories, in particular must be
recognised.
* Priority should be accorded to the optimization of existing water and
energy infrastructure in any region - both in terms of increased efficiency
and reduced social and environmental impacts before alternative options are
promoted. Basic needs should be prioritized rather than other 'demands', and
more sustainable small-scale options such as rainwater harvesting,
groundwater-recharging etc., should be promoted above large-scale
unsustainable options. Dams should be seen as a last resort with the onus on
the developer to prove there are no better options. The costs of eventual
decommissioning need to be included in the costing of the dam with specific
funds set aside.
* The management of local resources should be in the hands of local
communities with principles of democratic governance (including
transparency, accountability and participation) guiding the process. The WCD
should call for improved, democratically accountable, regulatory regimes,
and not accept current trends of privatisation and globalisation as
inevitable. Where private companies implement dams they must be held
responsible for the social and environmental costs involved. Companies
should have to meet the same standards overseas as they do in their home
countries.
* Large dams should not be seen as the answer to global warming as the
science indicates that methane emissions from large dams are in some cases
equivalent to that of thermal power stations. Specifically, large dams
should not be eligible for the "flexible mechanisms" of the Kyoto Protocol.
Instead measures to mitigate global warming should focus first on energy
conservation and efficiency - especially in the hyper-consuming countries of
the West and the high-consuming classes of the rest of the world - and
second on the development of sustainable and renewable forms of power
generation.
* There should be a moratorium on the construction of new dams in all
countries until all the problems - social-economic, environmental and
cultural - caused by completed projects in that country are resolved.
We will be waiting on the 16 November 2000 to see how brave the World
Commission on Dams has been in implementing the original challenge and
mandate to assess the development effectiveness of large dams. What will be
the message that we take back to the people fighting for their livelihoods
in the river valleys of the world where the value of the river is known?
What will be the message that we take back to the people removed from the
rivers, the people with the taps and electric switches in their houses, who
ignorantly and not so ignorantly, let the rivers run dry?
Liane Greeff
Environmental Monitoring Group
Cape Town
South Africa
liane@kingsley.co.za
+27 +21 761 0549
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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