Mr. Wang Shu-cheng, the China’s Minister of Water Resources, told the reporter that the original plan of Nujiang hydropower development was focused more on the benefits of power generation, with less attention on the environmental impacts. This is a weakness of the original planning. He thought that the dams with more consensus can be first developed, while those with less consensus can be further investigated and planned seriously. This, on one hand, will not affect the hydropower development, but on the other hand, will protect the Nu River’s environment. And according to the sources from the Ministry of Water Resources, from the perspectives of planning and environment protection, amid the middle and lower reaches of the 2-reservoir, 13-cascade Nu River dam development proposal, four of the 13 dam projects will be first developed, i.e. Maji, Liuku, Yabiluo and Saige. The environmentalists analysed that the four dam projects could be of pilot projects, and should have avoided the controversial dam resettlement and environmental issues. Even though the planning was approved, it does not imply that the proejcts can be immediately set off. Before setting off the construction, massive technical issues have to be resolved, such as soil preservation plan, geological impacts study and cultural relics protection work. Original Chinese version. [PDF]

Wen Wei Po, March 13, 2001