December 22, 2001

SOME large dams just shouldn’t be built. They cause too much collateral damage to  nature or human societies that happen to be in the way. Some such boondoggles become causes cÉlÈbres: the Narmada dams in India, say, or Turkey’s controversial Ilisu  project.

This week we highlight another (see “Concrete jungle”). Belize’s Chalillo dam, on which construction could begin next month, would flood a valley slap bang in the middle of one of the few surviving rainforests in Central America-an oasis of rare species. Asked to compile an assessment, biologists at the Natural History Museum in London said that the impacts were too great and irreducible and that the dam should not be built. In doing so they broke one of the unwritten rules for writing environmental impact assessments for   large construction projects. It’s just  not the done thing to say “no”. Only “yes, provided . . .” A year ago, the World Commission on Dams, which is backed by the World Bank,  highlighted the dilemma scientists find themselves in. Far from being brought in to offer an independent assessment, the job had become “to render dams acceptable when the decision to proceed has already been taken”.
Scientists working on EIAs should be able to say no to a project. If they can’t, the whole  process will be a fraud, and the scientists themselves would be prostituting their expertise. The Natural History Museum should be congratulated for taking a stand.

New  Scientist magazine, vol 172 issue 2322, page 3