LUANG PRABANG, Laos (AP) — Laos, a landlocked country, lacks the famous beaches of its neighbors to attract tourists, and relies on the pristine appearance of its mountains, rivers and historic sites to attract visitors.
The crown jewel is Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where legend has it that Buddha once rested during his travels. It brings all the elements together, with its mix of historic Laotian and French colonial architecture on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam Khan rivers.
But the construction of a multibillion-dollar dam 25 kilometers upstream has raised concerns that the city is squandering its UNESCO status, as well as broader questions about the effects of the government’s ambitious plans to build dams on the Mekong River, the lifeblood of Southeast Asia. .
“When the Luang Prabang dam is finished, and it’s already under construction, the river will spill out into a frame of dead water,” said Brian Eyler, director of the Southeast Asia and its Energy Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center. Water program and sustainability program.
“People who come to Luang Prabang as tourists to see the mighty Mekong and see how the Laotians interact with the river, all those interactions are going to disappear – all the fishing, significant local boating, and industry done through the locals in small boats. it will end. “
The dam is also being built near an active fault and design studies conclude that it could withstand an earthquake, which worries local citizens.
For Som Phone, a 38-year-old tour operator and longtime resident of Luang Prabang, memories of a dam collapse in Laos in 2018, which killed dozens of people and displaced thousands, attributed to poor construction, are still fresh.
“A lot of other people died,” he said.
Luang Prabang is not yet on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage in Danger, but the Paris-based company has highlighted a variety of concerns, adding coverage of historic buildings and the effect of dam allocation on the city’s wetlands and riverbanks. and is awaiting a report from Laos.
“Previous studies conducted through the government have yet to establish whether the allocation could have a negative impact,” UNESCO said in an emailed response to questions from The Associated Press.
The issue will be discussed by UNESCO in July at its headquarters in New Delhi, but in the meantime, the structure continues.
There is a hive of activity, with bulldozers shoveling shovelfuls of dark red dirt from the hills along the river, which are then thrown with a large number of stones into the Mekong to form a base.
The dam offers views of the Pak Ou Caves, which are home to many Buddha statues and are a popular excursion among tourists visiting Luang Prabang.
Once completed, the mission is expected to deploy more than 500 families and reach 20 villages.
The World Heritage Office in Luang Prabang forwarded its questions about its reaction to UNESCO to the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, which in turn forwarded the questions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the telephone and did not respond to the emailed questions it requested.
Located in the mountains of northern Laos, Luang Prabang was the capital from the 14th to the 16th century before being moved to Vientiane.
Its historic center has many Buddhist temples, a former royal palace, buildings from the French colonial era, and a mountaintop shrine built around what is said to be the footprint of Buddha. Several picturesque waterfalls are just a short drive from town.
A bustling night market houses stalls selling classic Lao handicrafts, locally made whiskey, and trinkets made from fragments of millions of U. S. bombs dropped on the country during the Vietnam conflict as part of a campaign to alter communist origin lines. At the morning market, vendors sell brightly colored peppers, spices, fish, and more exotic foods.
Many visitors arrive on small river cruise boats, or by train on a new high-speed rail system, built with funding from China as part of its Belt and Road project, which connects Vientiane with the Chinese city of Kunming.
It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 for its “unique and remarkably preserved cityscape” combined with its “natural spaces located in the city center and along the banks of rivers and wetlands. “
The Luang Prabang Dam is one of nine dams Laos is planning on the Mekong River. Two more already exist, and Laos has also built dozens of dams on the Mekong’s tributaries, progressing at a rapid pace over the past 12 years as part of an ambitious government plan to turn the country into the “battery of Southeast Asia” by supplying electricity to its neighbors.
Laos has relied heavily on foreign financing, mainly from China and Thailand, for construction, which explains why it now has an overwhelming debt to China that it struggles to repay.
“When we think about Laos’ ‘Southeast Asian Battery’ program, it’s Laos that opens its doors wide to foreign investors to come and build dams,” said Eyler, who also co-directs the Mekong Dam in the Stimson Center’s monitoring program.
Approval of dam projects moves quickly, often without thorough consideration of their impact, and the electricity is largely exported to Laos’ neighbors like Thailand, he added.
“This dam will not generate much electricity for Laos, it will force new grocery shopping centers in Bangkok,” Eyler said of the Luang Prabang project. “There is a gap between those who are negatively affected and those who benefit. »
The first primary dam, the Xayaburi Dam, just downstream of Luang Prabang, which began operating in 2019 and has already affected the city, said Philip Hirsch, professor emeritus of human geography at the University of Sydney.
“The city has already become a lakeside city instead of a riverside city. . . due to the effects of the Xayaburi dam downstream,” he said.
Plans are to allow a constant flow of water through the new Luang Prabang dam, as a so-called run-of-the-river dam, but the waters will be further starved of sediment, affecting traditional fishing and farming of the banks.
In a report commissioned from Lao authorities, British consultancy CBA concluded that “key problems such as catastrophic flooding due to dam failures and adjustments to Mekong water levels have been resolved”, but seismologists and other stakeholders claim that the building is being built near an active source. site. fault line.
“When you have a 78-kilometer-long reservoir and you’ve raised the water point about 40 meters, you’re only going to have a wall of water and, given the low elevation of parts of Luang Prabang along the river, it’s going to be devastating,” Hirsch said.
The Mekong River Commission, an organization set up to cooperate on river-like issues across the countries through which it flows — Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam — said its technical review of the task showed that the ground movement of the recent earthquakes was “significantly less than the expected ‘limit’ of the dam.
In a written response to questions from the AP, he noted that the Lao government has set up an independent committee to oversee the safety factor of dams.
The Mekong River is home to the world’s largest inland fishery, and the river commission also considered the dam’s potential impact on hydrology, sediments, water quality, fish and other issues.
It concluded that the dam, when compared to other dams already built or planned in Laos, could cause damage downstream in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, confirming the attention expressed in those countries.
“Taken in isolation, the potential transboundary adverse effects due to the allocation of hydropower from Luang Prabang would likely not be substantial,” the river commission said. “But in addition to other existing and planned developments, this can also have a massive effect. “in other riparian states. “
For tourist Barbara Curti, who came to Luang Prabang to see “the real people, the real life” of Laos, a new dam could have a significant impact on the city’s attractiveness as a destination.
“For me, it’s a problem, the construction of the dam, because they would change too much of the life and the real character of the city,” said the 46-year-old Italian, sitting on the banks of the Mekong with a friend.
“In my opinion, we want to keep the traditions. “