Tonle Sap Lake Key To SE Asian Food Security, So Let's Dam The FUCK Out Of The Mekong!
In a few months’ time, monsoon rains will more than quadruple the size of Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap, south-east Asia’s greatest lake and one of the wonders of the aquatic world. The huge flood will reverse the seaward flow of the river that feeds into the lake, submerge forests, make a perfect wetland for spawning fish and will replenish soils for a rich rice harvest.
Tonlé Sap is the most intensely-fished inland body of water in the world and as the annual flood subsides, many millions of fish will flow from it and back into the massive Mekong river where they will become the staple food of thousands of villages.
But this extraordinary annual cycle which has fed Cambodia’s 23 million people for centuries is fracturing as first China, and now neighbouring Laos and Thailand, prepare to build a series of great dams across the mighty Mekong and its tributaries to provide electricity for the region’s burgeoning cities. Eleven dams are planned to span the main river and nearly 100 more on its tributaries.
The dam builders and governments cite the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but what they don’t tell people is that the dams will slow the flow of the Mekong basin rivers and affect food supplies. The Tonlé Sap, known as the beating heart of Cambodia, is liable not to flood, says Mark Goichot, a hydro-geologist working with WWF. “Most of Cambodia’s fish spawn is in Tonlé Sap lake, that is fed by the Mekong river. If less water comes downstream because of the dams, the lake will not flood as usual and the fish will not be able to migrate upstream, affecting the food supplies of millions of people. It is an ecological timebomb that threatens the food security of millions.”
EDIT
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/jan/08/wonder-of-the-aquatic-world-under-threat-from-plans-for-mekong-dams
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