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Thread: Amazon of Asean

  1. #1
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    Amazon of Asean

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    @nd only to the Amazon in fish biodiversity, the Mekong faces an uncertain future, as ambitious planners seek to harness its energies, at the risk of destroying its ecosystem and the countless livelihoods that depend on its local fisheries.

    Might there be other ways in which this great River can provide a sustainable future for both its wildlife and the nations it flows through?

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    Don't think that its still unspoilt. I've just recently came back from thailand. On one of the days, the program was "Lunch on Mekong River". We are sitting on a short of cruise and cruising along Mekong river. On the way, i see people dumping yucky stuffs, polluting the river. And you can't do anything to stop them, they are just the villages there. They haven't received much education and so comes this.
    The water is like murky and dirty. at first i doubt any fish would be in there. But after seeing some Mekong catfish (huge ones!) eating the bread tourist provided, there prove to be some lifeforms. There are many guppies, halfbeaks, many floating plants, elodea etc...

    So i think the most important thing is to educate the villages, not just to block them out. But the villages count the river on their livelihood, so its hard to prevent them from polluting the river
    Lyon © I would rather walk a thousand leagues then to see your ugly face

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    I somehow feel that the small villages along the river are the least of the problem, and likely the greatest human victims of the Mekong's development. The people there rely on the river for their water, food (fish), irrigation, transport and income (tourism, harvesting of river plants/fish etc)..... but should the river be massively dammed upstream, causing the downstream parts to lose their fertility (as fish lose their spawning grounds, tidal patterns get disrupted etc), all these would be threatened.

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    villagers dumping yucky stuff (as long as it is biodegradable) into rivers is not causing pollution, if you ask me. anyway, the river can very well handle such miniscule pollutants. and being educated does not reduce or prevent pollution. for example, if a factory were to be allowed to operate near any river and there are no legislations governing industrial discharge into river, chances are that the factory (which will definitely be run by educated people) will save the cost of treating waste and dump pollutants into the river.

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    Re:

    [quote:39ce9bf6e1="tawauboy"]villagers dumping yucky stuff (as long as it is biodegradable) into rivers is not causing pollution, if you ask me. anyway, the river can very well handle such miniscule pollutants. and being educated does not reduce or prevent pollution. for example, if a factory were to be allowed to operate near any river and there are no legislations governing industrial discharge into river, chances are that the factory (which will definitely be run by educated people) will save the cost of treating waste and dump pollutants into the river.[/quote:39ce9bf6e1]

    Organic waste by villagers do cause huge problems, even biodegradable ones. Adding organic waste such as human waste, fertilizer run-offs from farms along the river causes an algae bloom in the water which in turn cuts off sunlight from plants and other animals in the water.
    "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled" - Richard Feynman, 1986. Rogers commission into the Challenger disaster

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    I am not sure how true it is, but some sources i have read say a major source of global warming is actually livestock, namely the millions of domestic cows, pigs and sheep and the methane generated from their sai and farts.

    On water pollutants, I do see some signs (esp in Malaysia) that water treatment regulations (on the standard of industrial wastewater effluent) are starting to bite. Some say having to treat your wastewater (so that what you throw back into the river is drinkable) is a heavy cost to the economy, but other parts of the world have made this business a multi-billion dollar industry (and enjoy clean rivers even right in the middle of cities like Vienna/Danube, Cologne/Rhine as a result) and only recently have people here gotten the very idea that environmental concerns are not pie in the sky. Maybe I should start buying Hyflux shares.....

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    in sabah, where the economy is based on primary industries and uses quite a lot of chemical fertilisers, i have not seen any river turning green due to algae. most, if not all, of the rivers are either dark bluish or slightly muddy. i guess a moving body of water doesn't allow algae to thrive. however, if these fertiliser and organic waste laden water were to flow into a lake, i believe there will be an algae bloom in the lake.

    budak,
    i think it will take a very long time before asian countries achieve the recycling activity levels of european countries. in singapore, there are recycling bins in some selected locations but how often do you see people actually drop recycleable material in.

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    Lately I hear news that China is trying to build more dams and affecting the Mekong River.

    China's dams put Mekong on knife's edge, says researcher. Wednesday, June 30, 2004 By Reuters

    China's damming of the Mekong River to help power its economy could pose a grave threat within a decade to the livelihoods of millions of Southeast Asian farmers and fishers, an Australian researcher said on Tuesday...
    Other reports/ articles:
    Dams to Blame for the Dying Mekong River?
    Mekong River - The Lifeblood of Southeast Asia
    koah fong
    Juggler's tanks

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    My view on this is that it is not really the villagers are not really at fault, but rather the large industries that resides by or close to the river and taps on its limited resources. Afterall, many of these villages have been by the river for long periods of time and their very existence depends on the purity of the water be it for washing or fishing.

    The large industries on the other hand seeks the most cost effective way to dispose of their rubbish, or cool their machines which results in pollution and higher water temperature that can annihilate the wildlife dependent on the water.

    In addition, I think defforestation due to the insatiable demand for lumber is also a major cause of pollution as unprotected topsoil get abluded down into the river resulting in algae blooms (imagine laterite exposed in vast quantity in your planted tank! )

    lastly, the question on animal farts and poos, i think there is a small element of truth. afterall, fart is essentially methane apprarently and dung can be used as fuel, so i guess it does contribute to pollution!

    I am indeed concern about the many dam projects built high upstream. the various nations where the river flows through ought to have some agreement and due consideration for each other when making such drastic decisions as to build a dam.
    ----------------------------

    do not do to others what you will not want done to you!

    be kind! =)

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    Re:

    One could see the Mekong's case as a sad (and very significant) representative of the case elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

    The problem with rivers is that they belong to everyone - therefore they belong to none. Economists call this the Tragedy of the Commons. Why should someone living at a particular stretch of a river bother to take care of his patch, if the benefits of doing so would be reaped by another person downstream, and there is no assurance that those further upstream will do their part? It's like the case with street lighting and fire brigades – because everybody benefits from such services, everybody will want to be a free-rider when it comes to paying for it.

    Many authorities in the region also seem to fail to grasp the notion of external costs. A timber company may pay a rich concession fee for lumbering rights, and a manufacturing plant may account for all its legal licenses etc..... but do all these add up to covering the external costs of their activities, which end up being borne by villagers and the government itself? In the rush to achieve numerical GDP growth, has the cost of diminishing biodiversity, pollution from factories and lumberwork, damage by floods caused by denuded forests and hills, disruption of traditional communities by dams, etc been taken into account? Apparently not.

    In Asia, the value of biodiversity (both in its link to a healthy ecosystem and the promises of new applications for human benefit) has been grossly underrated. A nation's natural resources, are of course, rightly put to use for general benefit, but the way rivers, forests, coral reefs and mangroves are being exploited at the moment appears unsustainable, in part because those exploiting it are primarily motivated by annual shareholder returns. A reassessment of how natural resources in Asia are owned and managed (i.e. by the people who stand to gain or lose the most from the resource's sustainability) is much needed.

    Unfortunately, the pessimistic view is that all this headlong rush into "development" is "necessary" because Asians are not as rich as green-minded Westerners. Perhaps. But I am sure when Asians are that rich, their lives will be much poorer in effect as it will probably be too late to bring back the jungles, reefs, rivers and creatures, as well as clean air and environments that once were.

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