 |
 |
 | |
| |
| |
| WCD in the Media
[Media Items Contents] | |
Home
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| WCD in the Media
[Media Items Contents] | |
|
Home
|
|
|
Dammed if you do, dammed... by Melanie Gosling, The Cape Times, South Africa - 23 November 2000 AS a child I remember being shown a film called "Operation Noah", where rangers in boats sped around Kariba Dam saving wild animals from the rising waters after the massive dam had been built on the Zambezi. The details are hazy, but the impression it left is vivid - excitement and a warm glow as I watched antelope and monkeys, mongooses and snakes, being bundled into the safey of boats and taken to a new, dry home. The film never mentioned people, and I never thought of them.Last year, decades later, I sat in a conference hall at the Waterfront and looked into the face of Fanuel Cumanzala from Zimbabwe, one of 57,000 Tonga people who were forcibly removed to make way for Kariba, the biggest man-made lake in the world. His hands were shaking, but his voice was calm. He told representatives from the World Commission on Dams that the Tonga referred to the year Kariba became operational as "the year of eating bones". His people, who had lived by fishing, hunting and floodplain agriculture since 1500AD, had lost everything. As he spoke of the thousands who had been loaded onto government trucks, their livestock drowned and their homes flooded - I felt a sense of shame and compassion. Shame because I had never thought of the people Kariba had displaced, compassion because of the pain he still felt half a lifetime later. Some Tongas had resisted being moved and government troops opened fire. Eight were shot dead and 30 injured. For 40 years the Tonga never got any of the electricity Kariba generated. The powerlines overhead carried electricity to mines and distant cities. The Tonga's case is not isolated. Between 40 and 80 million people worldwide have been displaced by the 45,000 large dams built in the last century. Last year, like Cumanzala, some of them had the chance to tell their stories to the World Commission of Dams. The Commission's report: Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-making, is released in South Africa today. The effect of dams on people is only one aspect of the most comprehensive, independent review of dams to date. The World Commission of Dams was born out of a World Bank-IUCN workshop in Switzerland in 1997 where people from diverse backgrounds came together to discuss what had become a highly controversial topic - big dams. With pressing human needs for electricity, water and food, and growing opposition to dams, the world had to find a forum to resolve the conflict on how to provide water and energy. It was agreed that a World Commission be set up with a mandate to: * review the effectiveness of large dams and assess alternatives for water and energy provision. * develop internationally acceptable criteria for the planning, construction, operation and decommissioning of dams. Chaired by Professor Kader Asmal, the commission brought together engineers, environmentalists, governments, banks, indigenous people and academics who after two years, thrashed out a public policy process for dams. Says Asmal: "No matter how much you know about dams, you cannot read this report and keep your assumptions intact. No matter how sceptical, you will come away changed." The Commission reviewed eight of the world's large dams, including Kariba, and surveyed 125 other large dams, examined alternatives to dams and received 947 submissions. "At the heart of the dams debate," the report says, "are issues of equity, governance, justice and power - issues that underlie the many intractable problems faced by humanity." What was the report's major finding? Broadly speaking, that while dams have delivered important and significant benefits, in too many cases the price paid has been unacceptable and often unnecessary. Not an earth-shattering finding, but as Asmal points out, its strength is that it comes from many authors who were originally separated by the cultural and philosophical divides of the debate, and represents a consensus from the pro and anti-big dams lobbies. Between the 1930s and 1970s, large dams became synonymous with development and economic progress, symbols of modernisation. By the 1970s an average of two or three large dams were commissioned every day somewhere in the world. The benefits were obvious - water supply, electricity, irrigation. There were other spin-offs, like the tourism industry around Kariba, where 20 hotels were built. However, gradually the cracks began to show and the full costs of dams began to emerge. According to the report, many large dams have fallen short of their economic and physical targets. Many designed for irrigation have not met their water delivery targets, not recovered their costs and are less profitable than expected. Hydropower dams are closer, but still below, targets for power generation, and large dams generally have shown a marked tendency towards schedule delays and significant cost overruns. The impacts on the natural environment have been generally negative, and efforts to counter these - like Operation Noah - have met with limited success. Dams have led to irreversible loss of plant and animals species, and entire ecosystems. Kariba dam, which changed the seasonal flow on the Zambezi delta, cost the shrimp fisheries about $10-million a year. Globally, one fifth of irrigated land has become waterlogged and saline. All dams contribute to global warming as they emit greenhouse gases from the rotting vegetation underwater. Many of the environmental costs cannot be accounted for in economic terms, meaning the true profitability of dams remains elusive. "Perhaps of most significance is that the people bearing the social and environmental costs and risks of large dams, especially the poor, are often not the same people that receive the water and electricity services," the report says. Does the report signal the end of dam building? No, but it says all possible options must be weighed up first to make sure if a dam is built, it is the best decision for water and energy supply, which benefits everyone. The key issue is not really about dams, but about options for water and energy development. "It relates to one of the greatest challenges facing the world in this new century - the need to rethink the management of freshwater resources," the report states. The Commission advocates that five "core values" should be applied to any decisions about water and energy projects: equity, efficiency, participatory decision-making, sustainability and accountability. Noble ideals, but the report is practical too, and lays out a new policy framework with seven principles to translate the framework into practice. The report represents a fundamental shift in world thinking about water and energy provision - but will it change things on the ground? That depends on whether countries adopt it. The Commission is optimistic: "The cost of controversy is too high. There is no turning back. Using the Commission's framework will save money, time and avoid conflicts, and deliver more equitable results by eliminating 'bad' dams at an early stage." The report came 50 years too late for Cumanzala and the Tonga people, whose ancestral lands lie forever buried beneath Kariba, but it does outline how reparation can be made to him and the millions of others displaced by dams worldwide. And if adopted globally, it'll ensure that never again will people be shot to make way for a dam, nor will they regard the year a dam was built as the time they lo st everything, as "the year of eating bones". THE TRUTH ABOUT DAMS * Dams have displaced between 40 to 80 million people worldwide * There are over 45,000 dams in over 150 countries. * Half the world's dams were built for irrigation and contribute 14% of world food. * Hydropower supplies 19% of global electricity * Dams have fragmented 60% of the world's rivers. * Dams have meant loss of floodplain agriculture, fisheries, pasture, forests and livelihoods. * Irrigation dams have fallen short of targets and been less profitable than expected. * Dams have led to the loss of species and entire ecosystems. * Dams have led to significant cost overruns. * The social and environmental costs of dams means their true profitability remains elusive. NEW POLICY FOR DAMS: * Public acceptance is essential * Alternatives to dams must first be explored. * Benefits from existing dams must be maximised * Downstream effects on ecosystems must be avoided * Benefits from dams must be negotiated and shared * Regulations and criteria must be complied with * Dams on boundary rivers must promote regional co-operation DOES CAPE TOWN NEED SKUIFRAAM DAM? * Have we explored all alternatives? * Have we optimised water recycling? * Have the leaks in the municipal supply systems been assessed, water loss quantified, and repairs planned? * Does the public know the dam is likely to run into significant cost overruns? * Has Cape Town got an effective water demand management system in place to reduce consumption? * Have the downstream environmental impacts, particularly on the bird-rich Berg River estuary, been quantified?
Copyright © 1999, 2000 The World Commission on Dams | ||||||||||||||||||||||
