No government has ever admitted that the building of dams is the cause of “poverty” among the people of the Mekong River. The fish of the river and their economic value have been taken away in the name of development that comes with the construction of dams.  Mekong people have seen their options for survival restricted and narrowed. The poverty of their lives is not something that has just appeared out of the blue. Their fate lies entirely in political decisions, despite the government’s attempts to make the issue apolitical.

<div> <div>An environmentalist group has filed a lawsuit urging the government to oppose the construction of yet another dam on the Mekong in Lao PDR, saying local participation must be more than window dressing.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>On 8 June 2017, an environmental conservation group called Khon Rak Chiang Kong filed a lawsuit at the Administrative Court against the Thai National Mekong Committee Secretariat, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Department’s Director-General.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The group asked the court to order both organisations to oppose </div></div>

<p>Engineers are secretly surveying for dams planned by China hydropower giant Datang on the Salween and its tributaries in Karenni State under the armed guard of Burma&rsquo;s junta, according to local researchers.</p>

<p>On 1 Dec, the final day of the Mekong River Commission&rsquo;s (MRC) call for public submissions to its Strategic Environmental Assessment on the Mekong mainstream dams, the Save the Mekong Coalition sent a letter to the Chairpersons of the National Mekong Committees (NMCs) of Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, urging for a strong and trusted consultative process at the national and local level on development options for the river, which guarantees the participation of all riparian communities who would be affected by the eleven dams proposed on the lower Mekong mainstream.</p>