Foreword

What is the link between Cambodian sand dredgers along the banks of the Mekong River, urban farmers in Phnom Penh who are witnessing a drastic reduction in lake and wetland areas, and the Vietnamese farmers of the Mekong Delta who are turning away from rice-growing to migrate to Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s economic capital, in search of a better life? Or between Laotian workers in the mining industry in Xaysomboun Province, and the peasant farmers of the mountainous provinces in northern Thailand, who are increasingly dependent on the expansion of corn monoculture in the hands of multinational firms? Not to mention the Ta’ang tea farmers in Myanmar faced with the rollout strategy for a new economic development corridor on the Chinese border?

All these examples relate to one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century: the joint acceleration of inequalities and environmental damage. Recent studies have shown that this challenge exists all around the world, but the Mekong River Basin provides an ideal illustration (Islam and Winkel, 2017; Hamann et al., 2018). The region is home to an ethnic mosaic of more than 250 million people, following the river as it runs through the Indochinese peninsula, exposed to a full range of climate and environmental upheavals.

If proof were needed, the COVID-19 crisis reminds us of the extent to which ecological destruction can lead to healthcare inequalities and socioeconomic crises. Conversely, it also shows us how inequalities are themselves a major obstacle to the social cohesion that is necessary to undertake ecological reconstruction.

The integrative role of the Mekong River

This is especially true in Southeast Asia and in particular in the following five countries of the Mekong which form an original geographical entity: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Three forms of shared landscape stand out in the Mekong Basin. First, the highland range in Southeast Asia which was recently given the name Zomia by anthropologist James Scott (2010). This is a shared mountainous area, home to a great number of ethnic groups. With territories at altitudes above 300 meters, highland populations here have resisted all state authority for centuries. Second, the Mekong River originates in the foothills of the Himalayas in China and flows through the basin. Historically, it is on the meanders of this river at the foot of the

mountains that centers of power formed through history, with organized societies and the development of highly diverse agriculture. Third are the coasts of the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. In this region, typhoons are frequent and often destructive, but the people have learned to live with the water, whether in the immense delta of the river or on the steeper coastlines.

These countries are experiencing exceptional economic growth, driven by globalization and China’s emergence. Although they have not all experienced the same rates of growth and are not all at the same economic development level, they do exhibit a clear common trend. Geopolitically, the five countries are learning to live together, after sometimes ignoring or opposing each other. A new balance is being struck both within the region and with neighboring nations. Given their close proximity with the emerging Chinese superpower, these countries share geopolitical constraints and opportunities which imply a delicate balance between imitation and autonomy. It is clear that the Mekong River plays a central integrative role in the peaceful development of the “angle of Asia” (Bruneau, 2006).

An environment suffering from disrupted ecological balances

The rapid integration of the Mekong River Basin into the global economy has placed considerable pressure on natural resources, and the environmental challenges in the region are huge (De Koninck and Rousseau, 2013). Dam construction, excessive groundwater extraction, fast-moving urban and infrastructure development, deforestation for export agriculture, and mining have all caused major environmental disruption and threatened the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, the most vulnerable of whom have paid a heavy price.

Multiple forms of pollution – both urban and rural – and environmental damage, which affect the population unequally, are combined with climate impacts that will arise before 2050. Scenarios predict a one-meter sea level rise, leading to the displacement of 7 million inhabitants and the flooding of areas where more than 14.2 million people live in the Vietnamese part of the Mekong Delta (ADB, 2013).

The river itself is central to the relationships between inequalities in development and environmental damage: more than 20 hydroelectric dams are being built or are at the study phase in southern China, Lao PDR, on the border between Lao PDR and Thailand, and in Cambodia, with little concern for the externalities generated for neighboring countries (e.g., reduced or accelerated flow, nutrient supply). In the long term, melting

Himalayan glaciers could greatly affect the river’s flow and consequently the dams’ energy supply. Ultimately, transportation and energy projects along this development corridor are making the basin better connected while endangering ecological balances (Tertrais, 2014; Lagrée and Salenson 2016; Lagrée, 2018).

Toward a science for the sustainability of the Mekong River Basin

Beyond these readily apparent observations, we must note a lack of truly integrated knowledge of the complex links between the environment and inequalities in the region.

In the systematic mapping study we have conducted (Huynh et al., 2021a), we attempt to draw up a comprehensive inventory of all the studies on the subject: 18,286 scientific and gray literature publications were collected and categorized by title and summary, 6,042 English papers were examined, and in the end 2,355 were included in the systematic mapping. These articles were published between 1978 and 2020 and allow us to provide a comprehensive overview of empirical research carried out on the subject. Above all, they highlight perspectives to move toward a science of sustainability in the Mekong River Basin, that will include environmental, social, and economic perspectives (Huynh et al., 2021b).

The first observation is that research into these transdisciplinary themes is largely underfunded, in particular in Cambodia and Lao PDR. Furthermore, some categories of the population are understudied: the poor suburban and urban classes, women, migrants, and refugees. Existing studies also make little mention of environmental dynamics such as changes to agriculture driven by foreign investments for export purposes, biodiversity losses more broadly, or even health problems, although the current crisis does show their crucial importance.

Ultimately, this mapping work seems to call for a less fragmented, more integrated regional and disciplinary approach to the question of the links between environmental damage and inequality dynamics in the region. It is only by turning toward a science of sustainability on the scale of the Mekong River Basin as a whole that we can hope to stimulate dialog on the public policies to be implemented. In that respect, this part concludes with a discussion toward new research paradigms on inequalities and environmental transition under the broader concept of just transition.

Overview

This book, with contributions from a range of experts, sets out to gather current case studies concerning the environmental changes and inequalities nexus in the region. With no attempt to complete, but rather to create a (re)opening of the realm, the book presents evidence from several primary angles.

The first chapter visits the impacts of disasters, floods in particular, with a case study in Thailand’s Yom River basin. In this research, vulnerable and marginalized people are the focus, using micro-level analysis to investigate individual performativity and social identity in order to portray essential gaps in community-based adaptation to flooding under multiple discourses and challenges of river basin governance.

The angle taken in the following chapters, the relation between environmental changes and inequalities, relates to the impacts of resource exploitation on the development of local communities. Three case studies are developed in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar. Sand mining in Phnom Penh provides evidence of the precarious livelihoods linked to, and impacted by, sand mining, albeit in rather different ways between urban farmers in Phnom Penh and sand laborers. Later, a mining case study in Laos investigates the conflicts between mining companies carrying out development projects and village communities to whom mining appears as a threat to the physical and symbolic integrity of the environment. In that respect, the relation between extractive companies, inhabitants, and national and local governments is studied to shed light on the social injustice of the unequal impacts of mining compensation and mitigation mechanisms on communities.

The following case study is a special one, which accommodates a combination of academic research and activism. The author uses extensive field research combined with his own work directly supporting the researched communities. This study investigates the impact of the China-Myanmar economic corridor on customary land rights of the Ta’ang people in Myanmar: a heated issue in the region, where increasing global economic extension is hampering the customary land (tenure) and livelihood of the local people. The study also provides key empirical insight into how political situations can worsen impacts for certain population groups.

The volume concludes with two chapters researching inequality within two dominant dynamics of the region. One chapter analyses the impact of commercially intensified maize farming on smallholders in northern Thailand. The author argues how centralized capital that is tied into global value chains of production can easily adapt to localized problems within the

production system. As the market reaches out to the geographical periphery of Thailand, the disproportionate burden of risk is placed on the smallholder, exacerbating economic, social, and environmental inequalities. The final chapter examines the complex issue of migration, taking the Vietnamese Mekong Delta as an observatory case study. It sheds light on the interactions between the environment and socioeconomic inequality in migration patterns, through the perspective of migrant vulnerability and capacity in the context of urban integration.

Through this representative set of case studies, the book aims to make a first step toward collecting analyses and viewpoints regarding the environmental changes and inequalities nexus in Mekong countries.

References

ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB) (2013). Viet Nam: Environment and Climate Change Assessment. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank. Bruneau, Michel (2006). L’Asie d’entre Inde et Chine, logiques territoriales des États.Paris: Belin. De Koninck, Rodolphe, and Jean-François Rousseau (2013). “Southeast Asian Agricultures: Why such Rapid Growth?” L’Espace géographique 2, Vol. 42, no. 2: 143–164. Hamann, Maike, Kevin Berry, Tomas Chaigneau, Tracie Curry, Robert Heilmayr, Patrik, J.G. Henriksson, Emmi Nieminen et al. (2018). “Inequality and the Biosphere.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 43, 61–83. Islam, Nazrul and John Winkel (2017). “Climate Change and Social Inequality.” UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Working Paper No. 152. New York: United Nations. Huynh, Thi Phuong Linh, Etienne Espagne, Stéphane Lagrée, and Alexis Drogoul (2021a). “Inequalities and Environmental Changes in the Mekong Region: A Systematic Mapping.” Research Paper No. 206. Paris, France: AFD. Huynh, Thi Phuong Linh, Etienne Espagne, Stéphane Lagrée, and Alexis Drogoul (2021b). “Environmental Inequalities in the Mekong River Basin: A Systematic Mapping of Existing Knowledge.” Policy Dialogue No. 44. Lagrée, Stéphane, and Irène Salenson (eds) (2016). “Shared Challenges for Development within ASEAN. Applied and Analytical Methods.”Études de l’AFD8. Lagrée, Stéphane (ed.) (2018).“The Challenges of Energy Transition in Viêt Nam and in Southeast Asia.”Études de l’AFD16. Scott, James C (2010). The Art of Not Being Governed. An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.New Haven: Yale University Press. Tertrais, Hugues (2014). Atlas de l’Asie du Sud-Est. Les enjeux de la croissance.Paris: Autrement.

Map of South-East Asia/Mekong countries

Source: https://www.chiangraitimes.com/chiangrai-news/greater-mekongsubregion-single-visa-plan-edges-forward/