Chinese dams blamed for Mekong’s dwindling flows and fish stocks

Something is wrong with the mighty Mekong River, which frames the lives of 250 million people in six countries of Southeast Asia through which it flows and on which 60 million people depend directly for their livelihoods. Photograph by: Chor Sokunthea, Reuters, Vancouver Sun

March 14, 2010
By Jonathan Manthorpe
Vancouver Sun

Something is wrong with the mighty Mekong River, which frames the lives of 250 million people in six countries of Southeast Asia through which it flows and on which 60 million people depend directly for their livelihoods.

But there are widely differing views on why the Mekong has shrunk to its lowest levels in 20 years, with only half its normal volume in some places, so that vital fish migrations have been disturbed and river shipping had to be halted.

Some blame global warming and shrinking glaciers in Tibet where the Mekong starts its 4,900-kilometre journey through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before spreading out through Vietnam’s “Nine Dragons” delta and easing into the South China Sea.