Burabha
eyes Vol.1
New home
Smitthi tananithichot
‘New home’
Home’ is a pictures story of some resettlement villages for the Nam Theun 2 Hydropower project on the Nakai Plateau, Khammouane Province, Central Lao PDR.
‘New
‘
The Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project (NT2) is a hydro power project on the Nam Theun river in Laos. The scheme will divert water from the Nam Theun, a tributary of the Mekong River, to the Xe Bang Fai river, with an electricity generating capacity of 1,070 MW from a 350 metre difference in elevation between the reservoir and the power plant. It is the largest hydropower project in the history of Laos and is expected to export power to Thailand as well as fulfill domestic demands. NT2 was the largest ever foreign investment in Laos,Electricite de France, EGCO, Ital-Thai Development and the Lao government As the 450-square kilometre reservoir starts to flood the Nakai Plateau, 6,200 people from a variety of ethnic group from 17 villages. They’ve been moved from their old villages to what will be reservoir shores so they can remain on their ancestral lands. But here the soils are poor; land and forest resources are scarce. The Nakai Plateau villagers do have electricity, water pumps,new roads, fibreglass boats,school in their resettlement sites. Villagers welcome the wooden houses which have replaced the bamboo walls and palm-frond roofs of the old villages. Motorbikes and satellite TV dishes are popping up, labelled by some as signs of development. But now that dam construction - and the short-term jobs and cash infusion it provided for villagers is nearing an end, a foreboding question remains: how will villagers feed their families and earn a living once two-thirds of the land they used for fishing, farming and livestock grazing is under water? The response from Nam Theun 2’s developers is that these lifelong river fishers and swidden rice farmers will become lake fishers, cooperative loggers and cash-crop growers. A fine idea in principle, but perhaps unrealistic in Laos where inputs, skills, marketing and long-term training are in short supply.
Where will the cash crops be sold? Where will villagers’ water buffalo find food? What happens when the community forest is illegally logged? How will fish survive in a reservoir depleted of oxygen? And more questions
Burabha eyes Thailand