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26 September 2000 Down the page: News Reports and Links related to this issue
Human civilisation has evolved along rivers. Dams, by definition, alter the flow patterns and use of rivers. The resulting friction between large dams and equally valued cultural heritage has sparked intense and escalating controversies in many corners of the world, pitting archaeologists against cities, farmers against governments, nations against neighbours:
To tackle this issue, the World Commission on Dams, recognised for its independent, balanced, comprehensive and peer-reviewed research, has attempted to study the issue and collaborate with a range of partners including the World Archaeological Congress (WAC). The Commission's findings and recommendations remain confidential until the Final Report is launched November 16. But today, in the interest of transparency, it presents some of the publicly available evidence it has unearthed regarding cultural heritage management and dams, to help both sides of the debate articulate the problem and seek productive and consensus-based solutions. The debate hinges on difficult and sensitive value-based questions, such as: What exactly is cultural heritage? Is cultural past a human right? Do all dams impact culture? Should the potential worth of undiscovered sites keep new dams from being built? Are impacts of dams on cultural heritage irreversible? What matters more, the "dead" legacy of the past or the immediate "living" demands of the present? What incentives are there for improvement? Can all cultural impacts be managed or are dams and heritage irreconcilable? The Commission can't resolve all these issues, now or in November. But current research, including a recent workshop at the University of Florida (in association with WAC), has uncovered clues, and approaches, that may shed needed light. With advance plans, and by learning from past examples, countries, communities and international agencies, have the means to resolve them on their own. In shorthand, cultural heritage is the unique social fingerprint, the tangible ties between humans and their past. These expressions include: distinct and sacred elements of the landscape, invaluable ancient or modern human artefacts, critical plant and animal remains from human activities, sacrosanct burial grounds or revered rural or urban buildings. They are the clues to our distant and not-so-distant legacy. Yet the density, location and nature of these clues rarely emerge until, and some cases, only because, a dam, or other development construction has begun, leading to a dilemma. While nations should preserve valuable cultural and archaeological resources before building dams, dam building may be what uncovers the very resources worth protecting in the first place. This helps explain the dilemma, but doesn't explain it away, or make it less urgent. Indeed, authors Prof Steven Brandt and Prof Fekri Hassan reported on the February Dams and Cultural Heritage Management (CHM) workshop in Gainseville Florida, with the sobering conclusion that: "The magnitude of loss from different parts of the world wherever large dams are constructed is staggering. The impact of large dams on cultural heritage is both long term and far-reaching. It is also irreversible. The situation must be regarded as a crisis of unprecedented dimensions." Yet facing competing demands and limited budgets, what can be done by governments, now? The quick answer would be to proceed with extreme care. But that's easier said than done. The workshop documented how countries rarely have explicit CHM policies for dam projects. Of those that do, few enforce them. For example, archaeological surveys have been done for only 25 of Turkey's 298 dam projects. Of those, five have organised, systematic rescue work. There are signs of hope. In 1954, potential adverse impacts that the Aswan High Dam on Nubia were dramatic enough to change forever the practice of archaeology. An international rescue operation led to decades of intensified research not just in the vicinity of the dam, but throughout Egypt. This, in turn led the rewriting of the prehistory of the Nile Valley. On a global scale, what the then Director General of UNESCO called "a task without parallel in history" led to the launch of numerous other operations. And values differ. Studying Tarbela Dam in Pakistan, WCD learned how authorities, in consultation with religious leaders, ceremoniously moved sacred shrines out of the flood area. Elsewhere it learned that a Spanish community wanted their church to remain in the reservoir as a monument. But in some cases no 'management' is possible. Last August, in Geneva, WCD sponsored a meeting with representatives of affected communities on 'Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities.' It discovered that Epupa Dam, proposed on the Cunene River between Namibia and Angola, threatens 160 ancestral graves. As observer Dr. Bollig explained, "To the Himba, graves are not simply an accumulation of stones under which some bones rest, they are places laden with emotion and memories." Place forms their basis of political rank and order, establishes land ownership, allows religious ritual and orientation. Because a place, by definition, cannot be relocated, CHM of dam construction may prove irreconcilable, and lead to other alternatives. Not surprisingly, developed countries have more legal, organisational and financial capacity to cope with discoveries than many developing countries, as shown by this contrasting tale of two sites: Yacyretá Dam inundated 80,000 hectares of land, 80% in Paraguay and 20 % in Argentina. Between 1985 and 1988 a World Bank-funded study to evaluate the cultural impact covered an area of 4,916 ha, and located a number of archaeological sites. But Argentina's study work and rescue operation suffered from funding shortage and bureaucratic management; Paraguay's rescue research began only after the flooding had already started and, as a result, most of the sites were by then under water. By contrast, even before 1985 legislation, Portugal gave formal political recognition to its cultural heritage through systematic consideration in projects that impact the landscape, including dams. For example, Alqueva Dam was suspended in 1979, until surveys examined archaeological impacts upstream and down. Today, a year before submergence, Portugal has completed or executed all rescue and mitigation activities in the inundation zone, planned an archaeological museum, and constructed a memory center which includes an ethnographic museum, a cemetery to which will be transferred the remains from the impoundment area. Most countries document a gaping shortage of qualified CHM personnel, adequate facilities and infrastructure, an urgent need for local capacity building, and training that integrates CHM assessment with environmental assessment (EA) when looking for potential impacts. "There is a two-way tension between saving the past and providing for the present," said Madiodio Niasse of the WCD Secretariat. "Archaeologists don't face the political demands for water or electricity; governments don't always see the potential value of cultural resources until too late. But this may be a false choice. Both parties can plan ahead, then work together. Rescue operations don't just preserve what may be lost; they deliver real and undiscovered benefits to all in the same way, and perhaps the same scale and richness, as dams." The Portuguese collectively recognised these benefits when the country abandoned the Coa Dam even after investing US $150 million into it. To be sure, not every country can afford to. And even where studies are required, and cultural heritage should be covered, oversight and compliance may slip through the cracks between social and environmental impact studies. This oversight is attributed to: built-in biases toward only biological or non-human factors; the poorly understood link between human behaviour and environmental change; ignorance of how deeply society values cultural heritage resources; lack of publicised CHM data apart from a few famous sites; a scarcity of techniques designed to deal with cultural heritage in environmental assessments. Turning to global guidelines is not always the answer. The Florida workshop found most international organisations lack any explicit standardised policies toward cultural heritage, including the Asian Development Bank, Inter American Development Bank, Japan Bank for International Co-operation nor USAID. The notable exception is the World Bank's 1986 Cultural Property policy, currently under revision, which has specific provisions aimed and protecting cultural resources in Bank-funded projects, including dams. "Perhaps the most distressing political finding from the workshop," said Niasse, "is that some world organisations best positioned to fund, foster and improve cultural heritage management within poor nations, are most in need of CHM awareness and capacity building themselves." The dilemma is not only over capacity for Turkey, which faces international criticism for "sacrificing forever" a potential UNESCO world heritage site on one hand, or the immediate basic demands for water or power by its citizens on the other. It also involves priority. To emerge from the crisis, it must overcome logistical, political and economic barriers. Among the practical considerations in its Final Report the Commission may consider are logistics, politics and economic incentives. First, logistics: Not all agree that upstream flooding from dams impacts cultural resources forever. The critical impact zone is the "bathtub ring" area where fluctuating water levels scour and erode the shoreline. The deep-water zone may be the most protected from impacts and therefore the best location for preservation. In some existing reservoirs already built without attention to CHM, underwater archaeology is a viable choice for assessment of and access to submerged archaeological and cultural resources. In this regard, one Turkish local governor noted: "The dam [Birecek] only has a life span of 50 years. So our grandchildren will be able to see the part that is being flooded this month." That said, submergence of archaeological resources is not a viable mitigation alternative, as it is more cost efficient to excavate and manage these resources before submergence. Mud-based resources are most at risk from exposure to water. Gravesite disturbances often cause irreversible emotional rather than physical impacts that cannot be mitigated. Lastly, dredging of reservoirs can have negative irreversible impacts on the inundated resources. Second, politics: In theory, a quick ideal solution may seem to be vigorous enforcement of international guidelines and agreements such as a permanent UNESCO World Heritage Site declaration, protection or moratorium. But if the "stick" of legal or regulatory sanctions are too severe, they may actually create built-in disincentives to survey, explore, discover, excavate or protect cultural heritage. "Say you're a developer or regulator of a project and a worker brings you a bone, statue or clay pot that may unlock a gap in human evolution," said Niasse. "Your first impulse should be joy, not fear that this discovery will lead to demands for more money, mitigation, time to explore and thus controversy and indefinite delay. You need incentives to call in experts, not hastily bury the bone and keep quiet." Which leads to economics: Financial incentives come from long term revenue potential generated from discovery of cultural heritage. Small grants or rewards from national and world organisations may tip the scales better than threats of sanctions and project moratorium. Also, a percentage of total dam construction costs can be allocated for CHM, either incorporated into Environmental Assessment budgets or considered as a separate line item in project budgets. Funding at present is frequently inadequate even for stop-gap and partial measures to "rescue" endangered cultural heritage. No one can remedy the current inadequacies in developing countries without earmarking part of the project resources to CHM. "The overall picture of CHM and dams right now is dark. But we can light candles to reveal a path forward. From Portugal's Coa, to the Grand Canyon's Native American ruins, to Egypt and Sudan's Nubia along the Nile, each country went in looking to generate electricity and came out with ways to generate millions from tourism and museums. By enriching humanity, countries also enrich their coffers with funds to offset the opportunity costs of delay, or match the economic revenues of a dam." Top of Page (http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/china.html) (Sarma, I.K. 1984. "Some aspects of salvage archaeology in Andhra Pradesh", in: Itihas - Dr. N. Ramessan's Commemoration Volume, 1984.) and (Ramaswami, N.S. 1984. "ASI: An incredible feat." The Week, Feb. 12- 18, 1984, p. 44-45) Contacts/ Links
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