Scientists for the Mekong - OPEN LETTER TO THE MEKONG RIVER COMMISSION

Telling off the **MRC** & the** Laotian top guns**:
"Every member of the MRC and of the National Mekong Committees of the Four Lower Mekong countries (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam) KNOWS that Hydropower:
Is NOT sustainable; is NOT a Clean & Green Energy technology; is a constant source of GHG emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O); is blocking fish migrations since Nov. 2012; is risking the Food Security of 60 Million poor; is leading to the extinction of hundreds of aquatic species including the Giant Cat Fish, Giant Ray, Irrawaddy Dolphins, and dozens of fish species vital to the diet of communities in the Mekong River; is significantly reducing Biodiversity; is blocking a high percentage of vital sediments and nutrients that ensure the productivity of the river; is changing the geo-morphology of the river; is further damaging the Tonle Sap lake & Wetlands – i.e. fisheries nursery areas; is reducing water quality and thereby affecting the health of millions of people who depend on it for survival, and affecting aquatic life; is ensuring the sinking of the Delta by lack of sediments that keep it afloat, which are being withheld by the sediments blocked by the upstream Dams; is ruining the productivity of the Delta both on land and in the aquatic ecosystem by lack of rich nutrients; is promoting an “Environmental Refugees Exodus“ with Farmers forced to leave the Delta because of sinking lands ruined by salinization; is impacting the economies of Vietnam and Cambodia by loss of fisheries & productive lands, among other issues.

Hydropower Dams in the Mekong basin are actually INCREASING POVERTY and Despair, instead of “improving the standard of living and decreasing poverty” as falsely advertised. It is displacing tens of thousands of people from poor communities from their homes, lands and cultural sites, while offering a dismal compensation, which does not support the people to cultivate food or to fish, forcing them into a “market-life style” promoted by the Chinese, but without appropriate training nor money for food! (Despite the empty promises by the Developers to provide training).

Biodiversity is deeply interlinked with Food Security & Nutrition, and they all depend on a Sustainable Ecosystem. Thereby the need to protect ecosystems that support high biodiversity such as the Mekong River! The idiocy of knowingly building Hydropower Dams, which are NOT sustainable developments, puts at RISK the Biodiversity, the Food Security, Nutrition & Health of 60 Million poor people in SE Asia! Read more...

As the F.A.O. (2017) clearly stipulates in its latest ‘Guidelines on Assessing Biodiverse Foods in dietary intake surveys’:

“Current foods systems are facing mounting challenges to provide growing populations with safe, diverse and nutritionally adequate foods because of resource constraints, environmental degradation as well as the continual narrowing of the food base and the loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity is intricately intertwined with food security and nutrition, for it is critical to the availability of nutrients needed to support health and well-being, as well as to the sustainability of the natural resource base upon which food systems rely. Nutrition is at the heart of the sustainable development agenda.” Read more...

OPEN LETTER TO THE MEKONG RIVER COMMISSION

#Mekong #südostasien #PDRLaos #Laos #Vietnam #cambodia #Kambodscha #Thailand #Staudamm #Hydropover #cop21 #Mekongdelta #stoppthedonsahongdam #stopdonsahong #SEA #laoyouth #mekongyouth #MRC #Lancang #tamui #Xayaburi #Sesan #Srepok #Sekong #Sambor #CEPF #UN #MENSCHENRECHTE #OXFAM #NGO #WWF #SALINITY #UNICEFWATER #ENERGY #KHMER #VIETNAMESE #CHINESE #THAI #DROUGHT #ELNINIO #TIEN #HAU #FLOODS #UNICEF #CLIMATE #WORLDBANK #FYI #BAIRD #PETITION #Siphandone #methane #delta #DGD16 #health #USAID #biodiversity