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Chinese Environmental Groups Demand Disclosure on Dam Project - Kyodo

Posted on: Friday, 16 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Beijing, 16 September: Sixty Chinese environmental organizations have signed an open letter to the central government to demand disclosure of legal documents on the impact of damming the Nu River, the drafter of the letter said Friday [16 September].

The letter, first signed 31 August, asks the government to release the environmental impact assessment for building 13 dams in the Chinese portion of the 1,856-kilometre-long river, which runs from Tibet through Yunnan Province into Myanmar [Burma], where it is called the Salween.

The Nu River letter marks the first time so many Chinese environmental groups have jointly pushed the government to inspect an environmental impact report.

Signatories, the number of which grows as people sign their names online, want to know what the government plans for the steep, largely undeveloped canyon that attracts backpacker-type tourists for its scenery.

"The river, which is far away from us and not well known to the people, has become a focus of public concern," the letter says. "People hope to receive more information. They also hope that the major environmental and social impacts of dam building can be avoided."

Keeping the report away from the public raises further suspicion about what it might contain, said Lo Szeping, the Beijing campaign director of Greenpeace, which co-signed the letter.

"An ordinary citizen or one of the NGOs expressing concerns, none have had access the report," Lo said. "Why?" About 500,000 people, including six Chinese ethnic minorities, live in the river valley.

Reservoirs created by dams up to 308 meters high - about equivalent to an 80-storey building -would displace as many as 50,000 people, signatories believe. Dams may also change river water temperatures, affecting fish populations.

In February 2004, under public pressure, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called for a "science-based" study of the then half-year-old river dam plan, and as a result the government was required to prepare a detailed environmental assessment.

Letter signatories are not sure which office - the State Environmental Protection Agency, the Yunnan provincial government or someone else - has the environmental documents.

The drafter of the letter, who declined to be identified, said that asking to see the report is not about stopping the dams, but rather about the public's ability to examine government documents.

The letter has been floated online, sparking Internet forum debates, and distributed to Chinese media. One online critic wrote that the environmental document may be classified as a state secret.

Signatories say they have received no reply from anyone in the government.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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