According to the indigenous Embera-Katío of Colombia, “damming a river is like obstructing the veins of a person. It affects the entire person and causes illness. It is the same with a river. The water, mountains, earth and animals are the life of the indigenous people. The life of the people is in the water. We are like otter.” The World Commission on Dams (WCD) states that, “Rivers, springs and aquatic ecosystems are the biological motors of the planet. They constitute the base of life and the means of subsistence of local communities. Dams transform the countryside and create irreversible impact risks. To understand, protect and restore ecosystems in the area of  water basins is fundamental for promoting an equitable human development and for the well-being of all species.”

WHAT IS A DAM? According to the WCD, “a dam is a work, generally of reinforced cement, to contain or regulate the course of water, or to detain and store water in an artificial form.” In other words, it is a concrete wall that detains the current of a river for irrigation purposes, to control flooding or to generate electrical energy. In the report of the WCD, they state that around 2.5% of the water on the planet is fresh water and that 33% of that water flows, and that less than 1.7% of the water that flows does so through rivers. “We have dammed half of the rivers of the world at the unprecedented rate of one per hour, and in also unprecedented dimensions of 45,000 dams” in more than 140 countries, at a height of more than four floors, affirms the WCD (originated in 1997 and who had as their mission to establish an accounting of the impacts of dams in the world. This report was presented in the year 2000). It also concluded that the regions with the highest number of dams are, in order of importance: China, Asia, North and Central America, Western Europe, Africa, Eastern Europe, South America and Austral-Asia.

The first time that dams were used for the generation of hydro-electricity was in 1890. By 1900 hundreds of large dams had already been constructed in the world, most to store water and for irrigation. The International Commission on Large Dams, established in 1928, defines “large dams” as those that have a height of 15 meters or more from their base, or are between 5 and 15 meters high, but with a volume of more than 3 million cubic meters.

The total annual extraction of fresh water from lakes, rivers and aquifers of the world is calculated to be 3,800 cubic kilometers – two times greater than only 50 years ago. Between 30 and 40% of irrigated lands in the world depend on dams. Four countries – China, India, US and Pakistan – possess more than 50% of the irrigated land in the world. On the other hand, hydroelectric dams supply 19% of the world’s electricity and are used in 150 countries – representing more than 90% of the total national supply of electricity in 24 countries and more than 50% in 63 countries. 33% of the countries of the world depend on hydroelectricity for more than half of their electrical needs. Five countries – Canada, US, Brazil, China and Russia – generate more than half of the hydroelectricity of the world.  Between 1973 and 1996, the generation of hydroelectricity outside of the select group of countries that are members of the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development, jumped from 29% of the world production to 50% -- principally in Latin America.

From the 1930’s to the 1970’s, the construction of dams became, in the opinion of many, a synonym for economic development and progress.” This tendency, according to the WCD, peaked in the 70’s, when two or three large dams were built each day in some part of the world, during the most bloody period of the military dictatorships. The total investment in large dams in the world is calculated at more than 2 billion USD. This was one of the important reasons for the rise in external debt in poor and developing countries that, due to the electrical infrastructure implemented by governments for the development of capital, was subject to the policies of Structural Adjustment of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (see bulletins “Chiapas al Día” numbers 234, 236).

The three largest users of water are: agriculture that consumes 67%, industry that uses 19% (the equivalent of all the world production of hydroelectricity), and municipal and domestic use at 9%. Nonetheless, in 1995, 46% of the world’s population lived in urban areas – a figure that could increase to 60% within 30 years – principally in poorer or developing countries where from 25 to 50% of the urban dwellers live in poor neighborhoods or precarious housing. Because of this, fresh water will be, as the World Bank affirmed several years ago, the cause of many of the world’s wars due to disputes over access and control. Brazil has 17% of the water of the world, followed by Russia at 11%. 7% is in Canada and the same percentage in China. Indonesia, US, and Bangladesh have 6% each and India has 5%. 35% is in the rest of the countries of the world. Curiously, in some of the countries with scarce water resources are located the large transnational corporations that are seeking increased production of hydroelectric energy and privatization of this sector. Among the 15 countries with greatest “water stress” (crisis) are in order of importance: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Israel, Korea (Hyundai), Iraq, Madagascar, Spain (Unión Fenosa, Endesa, Iberdrola), Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Germany (Siemens), Italy, South Africa and Poland.

Of the five countries that have almost 80% of the world’s large dams, China alone has constructed approximately 22,000 large dams – or almost half of the world’s total. They are followed by the US with 6,390; India with more than 4,000; Spain and Japan with between 1-1,200 large dams each. Almost 2/3 of the large dams that exist in the world are in developing countries. It is calculated that approximately 1,700 dams are currently in construction in the world, of which 40% are in India. If the average world construction time on dams is between 5 – 10 years, it can be calculated that between 160 – 320 new dams a year will be opened.

There is a tendency to restore rivers in many countries. In the US, almost 500 aged and small dams have ceased to operate in the last four years, permitting the restoration of fishing and the resumption of ecological processes resulting from river flow. Lamentably, this is not yet happening in the Southern countries. Of the 6 billion people that inhabit the earth, more than 1 billion lack access to clean and healthy water. It is calculated that by 2025, 70% of the world’s population will not have access to sufficient water, according to the World Water Forum (The Hague, 2000). For this reason, water should be a strategic resource and focus of conservation. But the predators are lurking. Two corporations, Bechtel and Monsanto, both of the US, are seeking to privatize and control the water in various countries, such as India, Bolivia and Mexico. In the last decade, governments have been privatizing access to water services, sewers, hygiene, exportation and technology related to water. In 2000, the IMF ordered the privatization of water in 16 under-developed countries. Currently, 12% (of the industrialized countries) of the world’s population uses 85% of the world’s water. The WB ordered Bolivia to privatize its system of water that was purchased through corruptions by the US corporation, Bechtel, that took charge of the water system in the city of Cochabamba. Immediately after Bechtel took control of the water system, access to water diminished and prices rose by 40%. But afterwards, the people regained property of the potable water system.

EFFECTS OF DAMS

The WCD report explores how dams affect relations inside and outside of nations, between rural and urban populations, between upriver and downriver interests, between the agricultural, industrial and domestic sectors, and between human necessity and the requirements of a healthy environment. But how can the 261 rivers that cross the borders of two or more countries be handled? These basins make up 45% of the earth’s surface and contain 80% of the global river flow, affecting 40% of the world’s population. The large dams of the world have fragmented and transformed the rivers of the world – almost 46% of the 106 basic world rivers have been modified by dams. The US and EU regulate the flow of between 60-65% of the rivers in their territories.

Nonetheless, there is a lack of awareness that the world’s rivers are the habitat of 40% of the world’s fish species and provide many functions in the ecosystem that range from recycling of nutrients and purification of water to the replenishing of soil and flood control. At least 20% of the more than 9,000 species of freshwater fish in the world have disappeared in recent years or are in threat of extinction. Fish constitute an important source of animal protein for more than 1 billion people in the world. Although rivers provide 60% of the fish protein consumed by humans in the world, they frequently provide 100% of this consumption by inland river, campesino and indigenous communities.

Many of the floods in the world have been caused by climactic changes provoked by deforestation and unchecked lumbering in forests that do not retain water. According to the WCD, floods have affected the lives of 65 million people 1972 and 1996, more than any other kind of disaster including war, drought and famine. Nonetheless, only 13% of all the large dams in the world in more than 75 countries are dedicated to flood control. As if this weren’t enough, with dams – along with the fragmentation of ecosystems – whole societies have lost access to their natural resources and cultural heritage that were flooded out by damming. Cemeteries, forests and animals, and archaeological sites were buried beneath water forever. Dams have displaced between 40 and 80 million people from their homes and lands – the equivalent of the entire population affected by the proposed Plan Puebla Panama. But the statistic could pass 100 million. Between 1986 and 1993, approximately 4 million people were displaced each year due to the 300 dams that were initiated each year. But this figure could be conservative. Those that are downriver from the dams have not been taken into account. The two most populated countries of the world, China and India, have constructed approximately 57% of the large dams of the world, and have the greatest number of displaced persons. At the end of the 80’s China officially recognized that it had 10.2 million repopulated people due to damming. Nonetheless, in the Yangtze river basin alone, at least 10 million people have been displaced. In India, the population displaced by dams is estimated at between 16 and 38 million people.

In China, it is calculated that large dams have displaced 27% of all the persons displaced by development projects that include bridges, highways, urban expansion, etc. In India, the figure is 77%. Among the projects that the WB financed and that have implicated the displacement of people from their homelands, dams were the cause of 65% of this displacement, according to the WCD. This figure does not include people displaced due to other aspects of their projects, such as canals, electric plants, project infrastructure and associated compensatory measures, such as bioreserves. On the other hand, 25% of the large dams constructed for irrigation have caused problems in salinity that affect cultivation and render the land unproductive. This percentage varies. From the 15% of irrigated land in China that is affected by problems of salinity by dams, we go to Turkmenistan with 80% of their land affected. Between these percentages are (from highest to lowest): Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, US and India.

Those that defend hydroelectric dams argue that they are a clean source of energy and that they are a substitute for fossil fuel. But this is nothing more than lies. Investigations demonstrate that hydroelectric dams are not only socially and environmentally destructive, but also add significantly to global warming through decomposition that emits a high volume of carbon dioxide and methane, the two gases most responsible for the “greenhouse effect.”

The World Movement for Tropical Forests states that, “dams constitute one of the principal direct or indirect causes of the loss of forests, and the majority have caused violation of human rights. This lack of consciousness can be explained by the fact that during years dams have been presented as a synonym of development. Another reason can be that the majority of hydro-electric energy users live far from the area of impact and that the sites chosen for the construction of dams are frequently zones inhabited by indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and poor communities, with scant capacity to be heard by the wide national community.”

The more than 45,000 dams in the world cover more than 400,000 square kilometers of earth, equivalent to all the territory of the United Kingdom, Belgium, Holland and Austria. It is equally equivalent to 77% of the territory of Central America – or to the equivalent of flooding Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Belize and Panama together. For the WMTF, dams and their reservoirs “have inundated millions of hectares of forest – particularly in tropical zones – in many of which the trees were never previously cut, leaving them to slowly decompose. The reservoirs provoke also deforestation in other areas, as farmers displaced by the dams have had to lumber in other zones to cultivate the land and construct their homes. Furthermore, dams imply the construction of roads, permitting access to areas that were formerly remote by lumber companies and “development agencies” – which have further generated ulterior processes of deforestation.” They add: “In Brazil alone, large dams have had a direct impact on approximately 1 million people, who have seen their lands and lifestyle destroyed. Hundreds of indigenous communities from Chile to Mexico have been forcibly expelled from their ancestral and sacred lands. The people that are to lose everything as a result of these projects should have the fundamental right to be able to say “NO” to the dam promoters, the power to veto inappropriate projects, and the power to insist on development alternatives that do not increase human suffering.”

According to the International Rivers Network (IRN), “Large dams were converted into monuments by the military despots that took power in Latin America during the 50s, 70s and 80s. Notorious dams such as the Itaipu, Guri, Tucurui, and Yacyreta were converted in central pieces of ambitious plans to exploit mines and industry. They also lit the dark light bulbs in the ever-more populous slums that surround Asunción and Sao Paulo, where victims of rural wars sought refuge.

The IRN confirms that “The military regimens were content while dollars continued freely filling their pockets. Meanwhile, the Latin American debt with foreign banks continued to grow to chilling heights. While the World Bank looked away, dishonest businessmen trafficked millions of dollars in phantom steel and cement and became senators and president to be able to borrow even more money to buy turbines and transformers for the next round of wasteful spending. Thus the engineering consultants and equipment suppliers from Tokyo and Oslo sold their services through unmarked envelopes to public officials as“recognition” of their cooperation. The Yacyreta dam reached a debt of $10 billion, and Itaipu $20 billion. More than 40% of the external debt of Brazil was a product of investments in the electrical sector. “Dictators must have known that there were not going to be present in the final accounting.”

The IRN describes the scenes of the filling of reservoirs in the large dams: “monkeys screaming in the flooding waters, millions of hectares of jungle wetlands and other ecosystems were buried in contaminated and stagnant water, indigenous families transported far from their historical communities and forced to live in lamentable conditions, fish floating belly-up, clouds of mosquitoes, and contracted gunmen to keep in check the opposition that took to the streets to protest. The opposition was brutally squashed in numerous incidents that have been covered up. In Guatemala, opponents of the Chixoy dam were assassinated. In Paraguay the police beat intruders that constructed improvised huts on the Yacyreta reserve. In Colombia, repression against the opponents of dams continues, indigenous leaders having been brutally assassinated at the beginning of this year.

“Now the Pharaonic dams and their vast network of electrical transmission are for sale. Private companies around the world are interested in buying state electric companies but only if the national governments help to finance the new owners. 38% of the cost of privatization of the electrical sector in Brazil has been financed by loans from the National Development Bank.” Now many dams from the 80s are completing construction over budget, and the dam constructors confirm that they were not wisely planned. Nonetheless, more dams are being planned. The leaders in hydroelectric potential are Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina. According to the IRN, “Latin America is still fertile ground for foreign dam constructors, as these cannot sell their hydro-technology in their own countries, where the majority of rivers have already been damaged, and where environmental consciousness has obstructed the construction of dams. Nations such as Bolivia, desperate to obtain cash, are beginning to offer themselves as sources of hydro-electric energy to neighboring nations, in the same way that Paraguay presented itself as the Kuwait of South America in the 80s.”

SUMMARIZING:

More than 45,000 dams in the world have inundated more than 400,000 square kilometers of land. Between 40 and 80 million people have been displaced from their lands, in conservative terms – of which the majority are indigenous and campesino. Many of the displaced were not recognized (or registered as such) and for this reason were not reassigned or compensated. When compensation was handed out it was insufficient, and among those displaced recognized as such, many were not included in reassignment programs. The relocated population was rarely provided restitution in their means of subsistence, as relocation programs centered on the physical moving of people and not in the economic and social development of the affected people.

According to Mexican law, “The legal personality of the nuclei of the ejidal and communal populations is to be recognized and their property and land to be protected, as much for settlement as for productive activities. The law will protect the integrity of the lands of indigenous groups. The law, taking into account the respect and strengthening of community life of communal and community lands, will protect the earth for human settlement and regulate the use of common lands, forests and waters and the provision of necessary support funds to elevate the standard of living of its inhabitants (…) The following are declared null and void: a) Any and all alienation of lands, waters and woodlands pertaining to people, ranches, congregations or communities that were made by political bosses, state governors or any other local authority in violation of the law of June 25, 1856 and other laws and relative dispositions; b) All concessions, compositions or sale of lands, waters and woodlands, made by Development Secretaries, Hacienda, or any other federal authority, from December 1, 1876 to date, with which lands, ejidos and communal lands belonging to the people, ranches, congregations, communities and other population nuclei have been invaded or occupied illegally. (Art. 27 of the Political Constitution of Mexico).

“Only those people born or naturalized Mexican and the Mexican societies have the right to acquire ownership of land, water and their accesses or to obtain exploitation concessions in mines and waterways. The state can concede the same right to foreigners, when they apply before the Secretary of Relations to be considered as nationals with respect to said resources only, and do not invoke the protection of their governments with respect to the same, under penalty of losing, in benefit of the nation, the resources that they have acquired through this process. In a 100 kilometer buffer along borders and 50 kilometer buffer along coasts – foreigners cannot acquire land or water ownership under any circumstances (Art. 27 of the Political Constitution of Mexico).

The effects of this are loss of culture and historical heritage, as well as ecosystem loss, extinction of animals, land salinity and loss of crops, irreversible impact on the environment and increased poverty, debt and wealth only for the dam constructors. The affected populations that live near the reservoirs, displaced persons and downriver communities have had to confront health problems and other negative consequences in their subsistence means due to environmental and social changes. On the other hand “among the affected communities, the differences between the sexes have increased and women have frequently carried a disproportionate percentage of the social costs, having been discriminated against in benefit participation,” the IRN confirms. Furthermore, the costs of electrical energy have not diminished and many of the people affected by dams have not immediately benefited. Many, only decades later have received their electricity.

The WCD concluded that dams have caused the loss of forests and natural habitats, of species, of populations, and the degradation of river ways upriver due to the inundation of the reservoir areas, the loss of aquatic biodiversity, of fisheries upriver and downriver, of services offered by floodplains downriver, by wetlands and by coastal ecosystems and adjacent estuaries, cumulative impacts in water quality, natural inundations and species composition when in the same river various dams are constructed. The IRN concludes that “it is not possible to mitigate many of the impacts on the ecosystems and on biodiversity by the creation of reservoirs, and the efforts realized to “rescue” flora and fauna have had, in the long run, little effect. The utilization of canals for fish, intended to mitigate the blockage to migratory fish, have also had little success, as frequently the technology has not been designed to be site- nor species-specific.

Nonetheless, in the context of the Plan Puebla Panama, more dams are being planned. And in spite of all this, the government of Vicente Fox plans to construct another gigantic dam in the state of Nayarit that will threaten the indigenous people and the environment.

Sources: Bulletin No. 42 of the World Movement for Tropical Forests, January 2001; Report of the World Commission on Dams, 2000; Rivers of the World Volume 14, Number 3/June 1999; “Historia Inconclusa de la Lucha Social” (“ The Inconclusive History of Social Struggle”), INI, Tzotzil Coordination Center, Bochil, Chiapas (Huitiupán, January of 1999); agreements signed between the population of Huitiupán and the Federal Electrical Commission; Publication Ideas, Volume 7, February 2002, Belize; IRN, “River Guardians, A Guide for Activists”; Forum, ¿Where is Urrá going?, August 2000; CIEPAC.

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