Focus on Arts and Ecology

The big environmental stories in the Chinese media this week (13-19 November) 

At the end of October, Chinese NGO Rang Yu’er You (“Let the Fish Swim”) published evidence that construction work had restarted on a controversial small hydropower dam in western Sichuan’s Jinchuan county during the Covid lockdown earlier this year. According to the NGO, the project in the middle of biodiverse primary forest in Dusong valley had an obsolete environmental impact assessment (EIA) and construction permit “inconsistencies”.
 
The project was cancelled after a central government investigation into the province’s hydropower, with the Sichuan Water Resources Department announcing a sweeping reassessment of the province’s 5,025 small-scale hydro projects, placing 3,683 on hold and cancelling 1,091.

The Dusong dam has been in the works since 2005, but letters to authorities and protests by local communities put a halt to construction in 2016. After a site investigation with local communities earlier this year, Rang Yu’er You discovered that construction had restarted, with new roads and water pipes laid. No official permission had been given for the work, and the EIA was out of date. (EIAs are valid for five years in China and Dusong had its carried out in 2006.) The proposed size of the dam has also never been clear, with project descriptions disagreeing with permits, putting capacity at 8 MW in 2006 and 20 MW in 2012.
 
The dam is located on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River basin, an area designated in 2016, at national level, for ecological restoration and protection. Just last week, President Xi reiterated his call for “ecological civilisation” and “high quality development” in the river basin. The upper sections of the river alone are home to at least 280 species of fish.
 
On Wednesday, the Sichuan government announced its measures to rein in small-scale hydro in the province’s rivers. The head of Sichuan Water Resources Department, Wang Hua, told Xinhua: “If the dams that remain in planning do not accord with requirements, a reassessment will be ordered; if those being reassessed do not complete the necessary process in time, they will be cancelled.”
 
Read our report from last week on the Yangtze basin protection strategy.

(Sources: China Dialogue)