Laos has a dilemma.
How do you develop from an agrarian economy without killing the Golden Goose of tourism?
Tourists like the picturesque sight of terraced paddy fields and the Golden Wats (Temples) that dot the land like parish churches.
You could sell your abundant timber to the Chinese. Laos is still 85% forested, providing a home to many rare and endangered species. The problem is that China's demand is so insatiable that this policy has accounted for a 10% reduction in forestation in five years. Worse still, the gaps in the forest caused by logging have allowed farmers to begin agriculture in areas, until recently untouched. The sky is full of smoke plumes as fire clears the trees for pasture and crops and the integrity of the forest is no longer being eaten away only at the edges, but also destroyed from within. It is not sustainable and the government knows it.
Hydro electric development seems a sustainable way foward. The Mekong has provided the Lao people with sustainence and its countless mountains have encircled and protected them, for ten thousand generations. In the meeting of the two, Laos has an almost immeasurable quantity of sustainable power generation, both to export and to improve the domestic economy.
But it means damming the mighty Mekong and at this point toes started being trodden on.
Damming reduces supply for neighbouring countries. Pumping water through turbines, kills fish and degrades bio-diversity; but has Laos got the muscle to fend off water hungry neighbours downstream? With annual growth approaching 10%, attributable in large part to recent hydro-electric plants coming on line, when the rest of the world is languishing at 2%, a collision of these competing interests is likely to occur soon.
Does Laos' lie in the Mega Wat or the megawatt?
No comments:
Post a Comment