14 DAY TRIAL // In a press release issued just yesterday, green group the World Wildlife Fund argues that, should high officials in Laos move forward with plans to implement a new hydropower project, it might happen that Mekong dolphins become extinct.
On its website, the organizations details that the hydropower project whose environmental impact both conservationist and wildlife researchers are worried about is the Don Sahong dam.
This dam is to be built in southern Laos, and will be located just one kilometer (roughly 0.62 miles) upstream of the ecosystems on which the Mekong dolphins' survival on the long run greatly depends.
“Plans to construct the Don Sahong dam in a channel immediately upstream from these dolphins will likely hasten their disappearance from the Mekong,” says Chhith Sam Ath with the World Wildlife Fund.
“The dam’s impacts on the dolphins probably cannot be mitigated, and certainly not through the limited and vague plans outlined in the project’s environmental impact assessment,” the conservationist goes on to explain.
The organization maintains that, according to information shared with the public by high officials in Laos, work on this hydropower project will include excavating several million tonnes of rock.
The problem is that the planned excavation will be carried out with the help of explosives. What specialists fear is that the sound waves created by these blasts will prove deadly to dolphins in the area.
Besides, physical and psychological stress caused by changes in water quality, habitat degradation and increased boat traffic are likely to also have a negative impact on this species.
To make matters even worse, dolphins in the Mekong River are already critically endangered, and their long-term survival is already threatened by accidental entanglement in fishing nets. Besides, low calf survival is also an issue, the World Wildlife Fund explains in its press release.
“The attitude implicit in the dam developer’s impact assessment – that the dolphin population is already vulnerable and therefore should not stand in the way of development – will do nothing but seal their fate,” says Chhith Sam Ath.
The organization maintains that, instead of moving forward with this project, the country can achieve its energy goals by promoting initiatives that would yield the same results in terms of power generation, but would cause significantly less damage to the environment.