“In western China, the one-sided pursuit of economic benefits from hydropower has come at the expense of relocated people, the environment and the land and its cultural heritage,” said Fan Xiao, a Sichuan Province geologist and a critic of the Three Gorges project. “Hydropower development is disorderly and uncontrolled, and it has reached a crazy scale.” (Read Fan Xiao’s article ‘China’s big dams: Are they safe?’ Translated by TGP)

Resettlement hasn’t been easy for those displaced by the Three Gorges dam, the Times reports. “In 2002, a group of 57 villagers left the village of Daqiao above the Yangtze for a village in Jiangxi Province. Today, all 57 have returned. “We tried to grow rice in Jiangxi,” said Lin Shengping, 51, whose adult children had stayed in Daqiao.

“The harvest was really small. So we all came back. We don’t have money, either in Jiangxi or here. But at home, I can take care of my grandchildren so my son and daughter-in-law can go out to work.”

Ma Jun, environmentalist and the author of “China’s Water Crisis, Dai Qing, Probe International Fellow and prominent dam critic, and Zhang Boting, an advocate for the hydropower industry, were also quoted

Read the full article here.