Dam to Bring Power, Pain

Deep in the rainforest in northeastern Cambodia, where the landscape changes from dusty red to a verdant green, and where muddy potholes bar entry to all but the sturdiest of vehicles, lies the peaceful village of Kabal Romeas.

Built in the traditional style of the Phnong indigenous people, the homes stand tall and proud on their wooden stilts, and small children, chickens and piglets scurry in the shade of their solid frames.

Set Nhal, 89, cannot remember any other home. His family has lived in this village for countless generations. He remembers when the French colonisers ruled in the nearby city of Stung Treng, when the Vietnamese invaded in the late 1970s after the bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge and when his father and grandfather were buried in this village.

But soon, Nhal's whole life, and his traditions, will be quite literally washed away. The Lower Sesan II hydropower dam, a 400-megawatt hydropower project, lies on the Sesan River, a tributary of the larger Mekong River just 25 kilometres from Stung Treng. The project is set to come online this year after nearly three years of construction. Its reservoir will flood the two villages located upstream, one of which is Kabal Romeas. The rice fields, the houses, the land on which chickens and pigs forage, even the coconut trees towering high above the forest cover, will be submerged.

Power shortages

Cambodia suffers from a significant energy shortage, a fact that makes electricity in the Kingdom the most expensive in the region.

Imports from neighbouring Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam accounted for a quarter of the country's electricity supply in 2015, the last year for which data are available, according to the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

As a result, the government is pushing for the construction of new energy projects like the Lower Sesan II.

Hydropower plants contributed 43 percent of domestic energy generation in 2015, up from just 3 percent in 2010 a trend the government would like to see continue. Projects like the Lower Sesan II will ensure Cambodia is able to develop economically and maintain its energy independence, government officials say.

But opponents of the project argue that these dams have damaging and irreversible consequences. Not only do large hydropower projects destroy local ecosystems and impact the livelihoods of people who rely on fish for their food security and income, but indigenous populations like the Phnong also stand to lose their traditional way of life.

According to Yun Mane, director of the Cambodian Indigenous Youth Association (CIYA), villages like Kabal Romeas are an important part of the country's indigenous heritage. The decision to prioritise development over cultural preservation will ultimately be a loss for Cambodia, she says.

'The risk is that when the village is flooded they will lose their identity, their cultural beliefs, traditional knowledge, ways of collecting medicine, building houses, interacting with the land and forest,' Mane said...