Hailed as an important milestone in the villagers’ campaign to have the World Bank-financed Pak Mun dam decommissioned, activist Mrs. Charoen Kongsuk told the Bangkok press: “We hope that this will be the first step towards permanent opening of the dam gates and restoration of the Mun River.”

Researchers want the Pak Mun dam’s gates to remain open beyond October, to give them more time to assess how the river and its fish stocks will respond over time. According to Suphavit Piamphongsant, chief inspector-general of the Science, Technology and Environment Ministry, researchers need at least one year to study the full cycle of the river.

To complete the Pak Mun dam, the river’s rapids – which provided important habitat for dozens of migratory fish species – were dynamited in the early 1990s, leading to the loss of fishing livelihoods for an estimated 20,000 people along the Mun River, the Mekong’s largest tributary.