opinion Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad bombarded local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) again in his luncheon address at the Oil and Gas Conference 2001 on June 12. He said NGOs, which take up environmental issues are more interested in politically embarrassing the government than they are for the environment.

He held NGOs from rich countries responsible for provoking the people in the poor countries and to protest.

Portrayed as a Third World spokesperson, he questioned if the environmentalists are more concerned about the environment and the carbon sink for the benefit of rich countries than they were for the well-being of the poor countries.

He accused the environmentalists of cheating the poor people by protesting against developments for the good of the poor.

He referred to protests against hydro-power projects which he considers as the most viable and cheapest form of a non-polluting power source. He is of the opinion that by selling the excess power, poor countries can become rich.

It is clear that he was referring to the revived Bakun Dam project which will have a capacity to generate 2,400 MW of electricity although the present requirement of Sabah and Sarawak is less that 1,000 MW.

As the project was cancelled amid the 1997 economic crisis faced by the country, the submarine cable portion to connect the electricity to the peninsula is now not required.

Thus, it is puzzling who the buyers are in the mind of the Prime Minister. Could that be tiny oil- rich Brunei or the less populated Kalimantan?

Higher emissions

The assessment on power price from the Bakun Dam (19.8 cents) by the former project holders, Ekran, found that it is higher than those sold by the independent power plants (IPPs) (15.5 cents) in West Malaysia.

This conventional assessment does not include the social and environmental cost which is more often than not externalised. For example, the resettlement cost is borne by the state government of Sarawak but the environmental damages to the upstream and downstream areas will only be realised later, if not already so. The people will then have to pay the price again.

It is wrong and outdated for the Prime Minster and other dam-proponents to claims that hydro-power is clean.

Studies on the Brazilian Tucurut dam by Fearnside reveal that the emission of green house gases (CH4 and CO2), estimate that hydro-dams have as much as a 60% impact on global warming as a coal-fire plant generating the same amount of electricity and a 50% more impact than a gas-fire power station.

Dr Mahathir said affected residents can be fairly compensated. He suggests that those people who have to be resettled are usually poor and they would actually be much richer from the compensation.

It is hard to believe that the prime minister is so ill-informed. Resettlements schemes such as the Batang Ai dam has been known to have been poorly implemented and the Bakun Dam resettlement is a disaster as discovered by the an NGOs fact-finding mission there last year.

The resettlement of the Orang Asli affected by the Sungai Selangor Dam is yet to be assessed but it would be a miracle if the affected people were to be richer as proclaimed by the Prime Minister.

Huge cost overruns

Malaysia should not ignore the final report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), which was revealed at a ceremony in London on Nov 16, 2000.

The South African-based WCD, established in 1998 by the World Bank and the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), is an independent body which reviews the development and effectiveness of large dams, and makes recommendations for water and energy projects.

The commission's mandate include developing a framework for assessing options, and developing internationally acceptable criteria and guidelines for the planning, designing construction, operation, monitoring, and decommissioning of dams.

Though research, field visits and public outreach, it has studied 1,000 dams in varying degrees of detail. The WCD's 12 commissioners come from a wide spectrum of backgrounds - ranging from Goran Lindahl, CEO of engineering giant ABB (Asia Brown Boveri), to Medha Patkar, a leading activist with India's Save the Narmada Movement.

The 404-page report, Dams and Development, provide ample evidence that large dams have failed to produce as much electricity, provide as much water, or prevent as much flood damage as their backers claim.

It confirmed that these massive projects regularly suffer huge cost overruns and time delays. The report's findings include the following:

- that large dams have forced 40-80 million people from their homes and lands, with impacts including extreme economic hardship, community disintegration, an increase in mental and physical health problems, with indigenous, tribal, and peasant communities being particularly hard hit;

- that dams' impacts on the ecosystem are mostly negative. Large dams have led to the extinction of many fish and other aquatic species, the disappearance of birds in flood plains, huge losses of forest, wetlands and farmlands, erosion of coastal deltas and other impacts. And contrary to the industry's summation that dams offer 'green' energy, the report concludes that most reservoirs emit greenhouse gases, some in fairly high quantities;

- that the benefits of large dams have largely gone to the already well-off while the poorer sectors of society have borne the costs.

Be aborted

Based on these findings, the commission recommended that:

- no dam should be built without the agreement of the affected people;

- comprehensive and participatory assessments be done of the needs to be met, and alternatives for meeting these needs should be developed before proceeding with any new project;

- priority should be given to maximising the efficiency of existing water and energy systems before building any new projects;

- environmental assessments should not be merely a formality;

- periodic participatory reviews should be done for existing dams to assess such issues as dam safely; and

- mechanisms should be developed to provide reparations for those who are suffering the impacts of dams, and to restore damaged ecosystems.

The Malaysian government has not responded to the report. The Consumers Association of Penang has evaluated the Bakun dam (Utusan Konsumer Feb 2001) against the guidelines of the WCD.

It concludes that if the WCD report's proposals and guidelines were to be adopted by the Malaysian government, the Bakun Hydroelectric Project would have to be aborted right in its conception stage.

MC WONG has been involved with community development for over two decades and is currently with the Sibu-based NGO, Ideal (Institute for Development and Alternative Living). He holds an MSc degree in Environmental Management from the London University.