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It is well understood that projects like the Three Gorges Dam have disastrous ecological consequences. They knock geomorphic systems out of equilibrium. The decomposition of organic matter in dam reservoirs releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The advantage is that dams do not generate air pollution that causes asthma or heart disease. Thus, dam building makes perfect sense in China. Yet an additional issue warrants concern in the world's most populous country. To cleanse urban air via dam building, it is often peasants who lose their homes, land, and livelihoods to rising reservoir waters.
After reading that between 40 and 60 million people have been displaced by the construction of dams in China, I traveled to Yunnan and Tibet this past summer. Now, up to 1.9 million individuals are being forcibly relocated to make way for the 400 mile-long Three Gorges Reservoir. The Nu River flows through the UNESCO Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Site and is only one of two major Chinese rivers that remain entirely undammed. However, the Chinese government wants to develop the "Grand Canyon of the East" by constructing thirteen large dams that will generate more electricity than at Three Gorges. The Nu River Cascade Dam System will displace an estimated 50,000 people, many of whom are ethnic minorities and residents of the poorest prefecture in all of China.
I trekked up and down the river valley discussing the displacement issue with farmers and local government officials. People invited me into their homes and offered me food and drink or a place to stay the night. Some spoke of their incomes in terms of pounds of corn grown annually rather than in monetary figures. A few teenagers and young adults welcomed the prospect of dam building in the valley, noting that if displaced, they might have the opportunity to move to the city where life would be easier. Many others admitted that they were anxious about losing their paddies and fields. It is obvious that there is no more land to cultivate. People along the river already farm on slopes as steep as 70 degrees and appear to be clawing their way up a mountain rather than hoeing their fields. When large parcels of arable land begin to be inundated, they will go hungry. Most people have no other means to generate livelihoods since few people in the region have pursued education beyond middle school and lack knowledge of anything other than agriculturally based sustenance.
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