The Mekong River · Thailand, Laos and Cambodia


THE COLLAPSE OF AN ARTERY

The livelihoods and cultures of the 60 million people living in the Lower Mekong Basin are intimately
connected with the river’s natural cycles. Boasting one of the world’s most diverse and productive
inland fisheries, the Mekong supplies its people with about 80% of their protein needs. Yet this
beautiful, dynamic and thriving river system is under threat.

The region’s governments and various foreign interests have plans to construct scores of hydropower dams
on the Mekong and its tributaries. Laos, in its bid to become “the battery of Southeast Asia,” hopes to
develop more than 30 dams on Mekong tributaries and four huge projects on the currently undammed mainstream
of the lower part of the river. Vietnam is building multiple-dam cascades on several Mekong tributaries,
and Cambodia is also hoping to build dams on tributaries and the mainstream. These dams, such as Pak Mun
(Thailand) and Theun Hinboun (Laos), would mean death by a thousand cuts to the river’s rich fisheries and
the people who depend upon them.

Text: Patrick McKully
Photography and captions: Francesca Casciarri and Eirik Linder Aspelund / CALIAS PHOTO

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