Go south of the Lacandon forest, past the Lacantun river, past the Marques de Comillas, and cross the east-west running border into Guatemala - you arrive at Ixcan. This area is now receiving foreign investment to convert to African palm oil plantations. So the conversion of rainforest to small homesteaders' plts to cattle ranches takes the next step - to biodiesel.
elPeriódico de Guatemala » Economía » Auge de biocombustibles dispara demanda de tierras
The Inter-American Development Bank has given US$30 million to Guatemala for use in rural development projects and for the protection of archaeological sites in southern Peten.
Prensa Libre - Ambiente: US$30 millones para Petén
You'll need to interpolate the seat from the photo (good luck) and the end details are a bit tricky, but it can be done with these online instructions - an origami canoe.
Adirondack Life, Inc. - July/August 2008: Paper Work
Used to augment the police in crime fighting, to combat narcotrafficking (although there have been no arrests) and protect the national parks and archaeological sites, but little deployment on the borders and coasts, which would be closer to their mandate. Commentary from a Guatemalan military analyst.
Prensa Libre - Ejército está sin rumbo definido en tiempos de paz
Cool. Portable. Being tested in La Florida, Guatemala. via Ron Granich. Thanks Ron!
Hydroelectricity: Hydroelectric Bucket Will Gladly Help You Miss the Point of Camping
42 of them assigned to the División de Protección a la Naturaleza to help protect the forests.
15 to protect tourists, 25 to add to the force in San Benito, Flores, and Santa Elena.
Prensa Libre - Llegan 82 policías a Petén para ciudar bosques, turistas y poblados
Yaxha was the location of the most recent removals of illegal settlers in Guatemala's protected areas and archaeological sites.
Prensa Libre - Desalojan a invasores del parque natural Yaxhá
Forty other families were removed from the Sierra del Lacandon park on May 23. The largest community, Centro Campesino, is still in a legal battle. Other actions are expected.
Prensa Libre - Se han recuperado 657 hectáreas invadidas en Petén
Prensa Libre - Guatemaltecos se refugian en Tabasco
I just returned from the Porvenir station on the Usumacinta, where a contingent of 15 soldiers is in place to guard against reprisals on park guards and archaeologists.
391 dams in China were damaged in the recent quakes and pose a hazard to populations nearby.
China says troops rush to plug dangerous cracks in dam - Yahoo! News
An editorial in the NY Times opposing dams in Patagonia and supporting the protesters. (via Chris Shaw)
Patagonia Without Dams - New York Times
It's been five years since my first real trip down the Usumacinta River. The photo above is from an impromptu demonstration which our group in 2003 staged in defense of the river.
Tomorrow, March 14 is the 2008 International Day of Action for Rivers.
Mesoamerica | International Rivers
The fight to prevent dams on Southeast Asia’s last longest remaining free flowing river. Other news on threatened rivers linked from this site as well.
From Dan Phiffer via Boing Boing.
Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density. Shown on the same scale as the Earth.
Champion of India's lepers and outcastes. The Indian government liked that. But they didn't like his activism in preserving rivers and opposing dams. He died in February at age 93.
Baba Amte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Guess I should know this song, by a group called La Barranca. Here are the lyrics.
Amazon.com: El Fluir: La Barranca: Music
In the Sierra del Lacandon Park, in an area where illegal settlers were evicted in 2006 - eight leaders of new invasions are being sought by authorities.
Accompanying Guatemalan news video shows the settlements and the families who were removed. In a country still recovering from a civil war, seeing soldiers evicting peasants is painful and inflammatory. But the Sierra del Lacandon is the last large remnant of the tropical forest in the Maya region, and is protected by legislation. This is the point of conflict between conservation and social justice.
For my own 2006 video on the region (it will take a while to download):
Maya Frontier (iPod m4v video, 217 mb, 18:30)
AlterNet: Water: The Corporate Threat to Water and the Water Justice Movement's Fight to Protect it
The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw - Bruce Barcott - Book Review - New York Times
Researchers have discovered a new catfish species in the Usumacinta watershed. The fish has been named Potamarius usumachinctae.
Readers of the Daily Glyph may remember Lacantunia enigmatica, the other new fish that was found in the Usu drainage.
New freshwater ariid catfish described | Practical Fishkeeping magazine
Looking at this I realized why our planetarium needs to be a tilted dome. We want to model the earth, fly-overs, and fly-throughs, not just the sky. We'll deal with normal flat projection another way.
Google Earth Blog: Animation Roundup: Rising Sea Levels, Filling Grand Canyon, Global Clouds
Chris Shaw's book on the Usumacinta discussed by fellow Adirondacks folks.
Starts around 1:30 into the discussion, goes for about 5 minutes.
NCPR News Archive - Readers & Writers: Winter Reading Call-in
More on the organizations proposing submerged microhydro generation on the Usumacinta.
A proposal for four submerged generators on the Usumacinta has been announced. They would be built at La Linea, El Porvenir, Isla El Cayo, and Yaxchilan.
The proposal has been submitted by La Asociación de Generadores con Energía Renovable (Ager) to the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Guatemala. According to the proposal, the generators would produce 300 megawatts without disrupting the flow of the river. But the access roads and power lines that would be built would promote forest invasion and destruction. Claims of no environmental impact are not telling the whole story.
More information when I get it.
PrensaLibre.com - Proponen generador submarino
I met some of the authors of this report in 2006, and I was concerned that they were too narrowly focussed on energy benefits while minimizing the environmental and cultural impacts. The final report shows that they considered all issues, and concluded that by almost any measure it was not feasible.
The report analyzed the project with four criteria in mind: financial feasibility; economic efficiency; the distribution of costs and benefits; and environmental sustainability.
Usumacinta Dam | Conservation Strategy Fund
His question on small turbines in the first paragraph caught my eye.
Al Gore joins Kleiner Perkins to save the planet - Nov. 12, 2007
I am a little late posting more good news from Guatemala, that Elaine Schele sent a couple of weeks ago. The Hospitalito in Santiago Atitlan has broken ground on the new hospital, after a recovery and reconstruction effort following a mudslide that wiped out the old Hospital. Here's a great photo set of the new bodega on site.
Hospitalito Groundbreaking on Flickr
You can be part of this great project:
The results of the Guatemalan elections are in, and it's a victory for the center-left candidate over the ex-military leader. Thanks to Lyn Dickey for the news, and highest hopes for all our friends in Guatemala.
Colom is apparent winner in Guatemala | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | World
I'm next door in Chiapas, in the mountains, wet but not flooded. Anything like this turns the homes of our friends in Palenque into a swirling river with trees. No news yet.
BBC NEWS | Americas | Floodwaters swamp Mexican state
First photo I've seen of the new genus and species found in the Usumacinta.
Stranger Fruit: A new family, genus & species of catfish
At the excellent Google Earth Design blog, I found this link to the KML editing page at Google Earth.
I've posted about this before - Ron Canter's article in Mesoweb and the fantastic map that Ron and Joel Skidmore put together.
PARI Online Publications - Rivers Among the Ruins: The Usumacinta
But I am posting a new version of some Google Earth overlays I did a few years back, with Ron's new map on it. Please excuse some of my errors in placing it - anywhere that it does not fit would be my fault, not Ron's.
Download Usumacinta_2008.kmz (5mb)
With a new highway between Tabasco and Tikal started, and more planned, the Peten forest in northern Guatemala faces new destruction, and an influx of new settlers.
PrensaLibre.com - Impacto negativo en selva petenera, por carreteras
A victory for opponents of the dam in Guerrero state, Mexico. Thanks to Manuel and Anni for the news.
Judge Halts Construction of Mexico's La Parota Dam
WNYC - The Leonard Lopate Show: Protecting Maya Ruins
Excellent evocation of place and spirit, by pal Chris Shaw of course.
The Geography of Religious Experience - New York Times
And a PDF. One for the archives and the best of Adirondack writing.
Google is offering Pro grants ($400 value Google Earth Pro) to non-profits, to create layers in KML that instruct and advance the organizations' missions.
The deadly 21-year fight over the La Parota dam on the Papagayo River in Mexico. Thanks to Chris Shaw for the link.
Death Over Dams | Orion magazine
Adital - Guatemala - Peligrosa política de desalojo de tierras
An essay on the failure to realize the promises of the peace agreements, the resulting occupations of private and public lands, and the current policies of evictions from those lands.
La ausencia de políticas claras de acceso a la tierra hacia los campesinos, ha provocado el surgimiento de un proceso de ocupaciones de tierras, tanto privadas como nacionales, con el propósito de contar un pedazo de tierra que les permita su subsistencia y el de su familia.
La actual política de desalojos del gobierno, solo busca garantizar la propiedad privada, especialmente de algunas personas que se dicen amigas del señor presidente.
Thanks to Elaine Schele and Chris Shaw for the information. The Ixcan area is south of the Lacantun River, and part of the Usumacinta watershed. Full story if you click MORE.
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Ixcan Indigenous Referendum to Reject Oil Drilling and Hydroelectric Projects
Communities snub oil companies
Noticias Aliadas, CERIGUA. May 2, 2007
Residents choose the defense of their environment in referendum. Community members in the Guatemalan town of Ixcan, in the El Quiche department, overwhelmingly rejected a series of oil drilling and hydroelectric projects on their lands in a referendum April 20. A total of 19,911 residents participated in the vote, and nearly 94 percent voted against the activities, funded by private capital
The Q'eqchí' Environmental Roundtable, known by the Spanish acronym MAQ, which promoted the event that local authorities administered, demanded that the country's Constitutional Court respect and guarantee the vote, adhering to the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 on indigenous rights, the Constitution and the municipal code.
Several organizations such as the Ixcan's Social Pastoral, the Front against Dams, the Public Health Workers Union, the Academy of Mayan Languages of Alta Verapaz, ecological groups OilWatch and MadreSelva and the National Indigenous Campesina Coordinator are part the MAQ.
"The MAQ was created as a space [organization?] for opposition to the globalization policies that threaten the rights of the indigenous peoples, to provide information in Mayan languages to the population about the negative effects of those projects" such as oil drilling and exploration, hydroelectric projects and mining, and the Franja Transversal del Norte, or FTN highway project, said Herbert Caal of the Maya Ecological Roundtable organization. The region known as FTN cuts the country from west to east through the departments of Huehuetenango, El Quiche, Alta Verapaz, southern Peten and Izabal.
Decision making power for small community
If the Ixcan residents' decision is respected, the plans of the oil company Petrolina Corporation, a subsidiary of the English company Taghmen Energy, to continue operating the area will be halted, just as the company was considering expanding those plans. The MAQ is now urging other towns in the region to "hold this kind of vote, with the objective of making the law count."
Their calls are directed to one town in particular: Coban in Alta Verapaz. In November, representatives from the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Petrolina Corporation solicited permission to drill for oil on Coban's Municipal Farm Salinas de los Nueve Cerros. The company refused to back down from its plans, even though Coban authorities denied them permission.
Employees of the transnational company were constantly organizing sporting events between area schools and communities and cultural shows that promoted the supposed benefits the company's presence would bring to the community, says Arturo Chen, a MAQ member.
Petrolina identified the communities' social leaders and offered them well-paid positions, causing them to stop their activities against the drilling since they feared for their families' security or for losing the only source of income they had, says Leopoldo Marz, of the Maya Mestiza Association.
Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, whose area of 1,170 hectares (2,890 acres) ishome to the communities' important sources of economic, social and cultural development, such as the Chixoy River, five lagoons, 314 hectares (775 acres) of virgin forest and 360 hectares (890 acres) of sustainable use forest, Marz says. Officials at the Forensic Anthropological Foundation of Guatemala have registered 120 Mayan tombs at the site.
Shades of the Usumacinta. Thanks to Chris Shaw fro the link.
Buddhist Channel | Archaeology | Dam Threatens Ancient Buddhist Stone Carvings
Ron Canter's latest, a review of disastrous dam projects around the world, and examples of rivers, such as the Usumacinta, that are still free-flowing. I'll publish it in its entirety here (click More to see the whole essay) and the document can be downloaded here.
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BIG RIVERS, BAD DAMS Ron Canter, 3-26-07
Some of the most disastrous big dams around the world have been built in the tropics. The combination of high temperatures, impoverished populations, and water-borne parasites has been lethal. In North America Hetch-Hetchy and Glen Canyon Dams, while terrible in their own way, aren’t even in the same league with these.
Kariba Dam, Zambezi River
“The name Kariba [Kariva - “trap”] referred to a rock which thrust out of the swirling water at the entrance to the gorge close to the dam wall site, now buried more than a hundred feet below the water surface. In many legends, this rock was regarded as the home of the great river god Nyaminyami, who caused anyone who ventured near to be sucked down forever into the depths of the river.
When the valley people heard they were to be moved from their tribal lands and the great Zambezi River blocked, they believed it would anger the river god so much that he would cause the water to boil and destroy the white man’s bridge with floods.
In 1957, a year into the building of the dam, the river rose to flood level, pumping through the gorge with immense power, destroying some equipment and the access roads.
The odds against another flood occurring the following year were about a thousand to one - but flood it did - three metres higher than the previous year. This time destroying the access bridge, the cofferdam and parts of the main wall. Nyaminyami had made good his threat. He had recaptured the gorge. His waters passed over the wreckage of his enemies at more than sixteen million litres a second, a flood which, it had been calculated, would only happen once in ten thousand years.”– http://www.zambiatourism.com/travel/places/kariba.htm
Kariba Lake – length 280 km at max pool
In 1960 the gates closed on Kariba Dam at Chirundu and 280 km of the Zambesi slowly became a stillwater lake, the largest artificial lake in the world at the time. “Kariba” means “trap”, which it was for wildlife that crowded onto shrinking islands and then drowned as the lake overtopped them. Operation Noah, an international rescue effort, saved over 7000 animals from drowning, but was overall not very successful. Many more drowned, the cost was great, and the survivors’ habitat was gone anyway. Needless to say, the cost of the wildlife rescue had not been factored into the planned cost of the dam.
At Zambezi Deka, where a road reaches the river, the Zambezi has become a long thin lake set deep in the Batoka Highlands. Soon the gorge begins to widen into a narrow valley. Eutrophication has favored masses of aquatic vegetation in the stillwater. Visible in satellite images are bright green floating mats of vegetation caught in coves and between islands – they even block the main channel in one place. Below the road from Msuna, the stilled river enters another gorge, which it threads quietly for 19 km.
The river widens and runs northeast for the next 20 km. The river/lake turns left through a rock gate and expands in Gwembe Valley, once home to thousands of farmers and hordes of wildlife. For 150 km the lake is a man-made inland sea 25 to 30 km wide - about half as wide as Lake Erie. At Upper Kariba, 96 km before the dam, there were once heavy rapids in a short canyon. Now the lake just narrows briefly to 5 km wide.
Manantali Dam, Bafing River, one of the Senegal River’s two main sources
The Bafing River in Mali is one of the two main sources of the Senegal River. Completed in 1987, Manantali Dam – a “poster child for bad dams” – plugs the river about 800 km above its junction with the Senegal. In 2001, 14 years after it was built, Manantali Dam finally began producing electricity. 55% of the power generated goes to Mali, 45% to Senegal. Water-borne diseases (malaria, urinary diarrhoea, intestinal parasitic diseases, schistosomiasis, and intestinal schistosomiasis, a much more dangerous form of the disease) have spread rapidly via still water and irrigation canals. There has been a massive disruption of ecosystems downstream in Senegal and Mauritania. Manantali was so clearly a boondoggle that the World Bank took a pass on this one and would not fund it.
Irrigation agriculture has actually turned out to be less productive than the flood-recession farming it displaced all along the Senegal River for 800-900 km downstream. The high cost of building a system of irrigation canals has resulted in only a fraction of those planned actually being completed. In every irrigation plan, the government has favored large farms, and small farms have been shut out. Worse, poor farmers no longer able to plant flood-recession farms have had their lands appropriated. In addition, the river is becoming undrinkable due to the return flow being polluted by chemicals used on irrigated fields.
One intention was to make the Senegal River navigable year-round but that has not worked well so far. The dam does not normally impound enough water to meet all its touted goals: irrigation, hydropower, and navigation. The dam may actually be contributing to desertification in Mauritania, along the north shore of the Senegal River by changing annual evaporation patterns.
Diama Dam, Senegal River
From Bakel to St. Louis the Senegal River winds across a broad flood plain, the ‘delta’ of the Senegal River. It is flat and easy traveling, when there is water enough. The first half is seasonal; the second was tidal before the Diama Dam was built.
Before damming, tides reportedly affected the river as far as 400 km from the ocean. In 1986 the Diama Dam was built 27 km upstream from St. Louis in an attempt to stop the intrusion of saltwater, which in turn was being aggravated by the disruption of normal freshwater flow by the nearly complete Manantali Dam over 900 km upstream. The Diama Dam also diverts water south into the bed of the Ferlo River to store for the dry season.
The dam has caused eutrophication and disease in the delta by encouraging a dense growth of aquatic nuisance plants (mainly Typha australis), which clog the waterways and harbor vectors of water-borne diseases. An explosion of mosquito and snail populations has brought malaria and both urinary and intestinal bilharzia to epidemic proportions.
Kanji [Kainji] Dam, Niger River
Started in 1964 and completed in 1968, Nigeria is still paying off the debt on it (as of 2006). Instead of plugging a narrow gap like most dams, it snakes across a broad valley. At 9 km, it is one of the longest big dams in the world. It backs up a lake about 160 km long. The widest part is not behind the dam but halfway up, where the lake opens into a huge oval bay 48 km long and 24 km across.
Cahora Bassa Dam, Zambezi River
Quebrabassa Gorge, the final canyon on the Zambezi, begins below Zumbo, where the river slides into Mozambique, considered the poorest country in the world. The 1911 Encyclopedia gave the length from the first to the last of the rapids as 70 km, and indicated that the portage road was longer, “taking a detour of 70 miles (112 km)”.
The river is dammed halfway down the canyon to form 250 km long and 26 m deep Cahora Bassa Lake. The 170 m high dam was completed in 1974. The lake pinches through three narrows, vestiges of major cataracts at hard rock layers. The lake is very windy. Built for contradictory functions: flood control and power generation, the dam’s resulting flow regime has been very erratic. Since there is little demand for electricity in Mozambique, electricity is sold at cut-rate prices to South Africa. Even villages near the dam remain without power because the cost of building the grid is beyond Mozambique’s limited resources.
In common with the Kariba project, Cahora Bassa displaced tens of thousands of people, hordes of wildlife, and permanently flooded productive farmland. In addition, it has had a huge impact for 500 km downstream in the floodplain and coastal delta. Without annual overflow to floodplain pools, the fish have not been able to spawn in the huge numbers that once supported villages. Flood-recession farms along riverbanks are periodically washed away by unexpected dry season releases. Big game hunting, a significant source of regional income, has withered as the game animals have suffered from reduced wetland productivity. Nearing the coast, the mangroves are dying back without the silt renewed at their roots. Mangroves both protect the coast and are a habitat for prawns. In addition, the river channel is now often too shallow for navigation in the dry season above Tete. The net result has been to deepen the poverty of the average person living along the river.
Proposed Mphanda Nkuwa Dam, Zambezi River
The unflooded portion of Quebrabassa Gorge appears to have six major rapids, at least for now. Pictures of the gorge show high volume rapids in a spectacular canyon. Forested walls curve upward to cliffs topped by bare rock knobs.
“The Mozambican government is proposing to build the Mphanda Nkuwa Dam [Mepanda Uncua] 60km downstream from the Cahora Bassa Dam. It is estimated that the dam would produce as much as 1,300MW of electricity that the government anticipates using to attract energy intensive industries to Mozambique, including expansion of the Mozal Aluminum Smelter, but this power would come at a high price. The proposed dam is already a priority infrastructure project under the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which is promoting Mphanda Nkuwa for increased supply of the regional electricity grid, primarily for industrial supply.
In addition to displacing 1,400 rural farmers, the Mphanda Nkuwa Dam would require the Cahora Bassa Dam to operate according to its current destructive release patterns, and make downstream restoration very difficult to achieve. Mphanda Nkuwa could also exacerbate downstream social and environmental damage by causing daily fluctuations in river level. These mini–floods are predicted to flood ecologically important sandbars and riverbank food gardens which provide the only vegetable resource for many local farmers and are essential for ensuring food security during the dry season. The water fluctuations will also impair fishing and navigation by canoe, especially in the stretch bewteen Mphanda Nkuwa and the city of Tete. The $2 billion project also poses significant economic risk to Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest nations.” - http://www.irn.org/programs/mphanda/
Volta [Akosombo] Dam, Volta River
The stillwater lake has caused the spread of tripanosomiasis, “river blindness” like wildfire. Between 1960 and 1964 the rate in children rose from only 5% to 90%. It now afflicts virtually everyone living near the river, and half of those over 40 have gone blind.
Aswan High Dam, Nile River
The 110 m high dam supplies much of Egypt’s power, greatly increased the area of farmland, ended the annual floods, and allows two to three crops annually, but is not without long-term trade-offs.
Starting in 1967, Lake Nasser began to fill. By 1971 it had drowned 1000 known archaeological sites, the majority of which were never even surface surveyed due to lack of time and resources. Nearly 50,000 people were displaced. Effects included ending the flow of nutrients to riverside fields downriver and the intrusion of saltwater up delta distributaries now too feeble to resist.
The breadbasket of the Mediterranean, Egypt sustained intensive agriculture for a staggering 5000 years. Throughout its history, the nation practiced “flood recession farming” on a grand scale. Every year (with unpleasant exceptions) the Blue Nile rose on schedule and flushed rich Ethiopian silt from the highlands into the Nile itself. As is well known, the rise of the river spread the muck over fields in Nubia and Egypt all the way to the Mediterranean, watering them and endlessly renewing their fertility with “the magic mud that can raise cities from the desert sand” (Churchill, 1902). To quote an unnamed ancient poet, “The fields laugh and the river-banks are overflowed. The visage of men is bright, and the heart of the gods rejoiceth”.
All that has ended with the construction of the Aswan High Dam and two others in Nubia on the Blue Nile. No one needs to leave the bottomland to escape flooding but Egyptian farming methods have completely changed. Now Egyptian farmers need to buy water to irrigate their fields and fertilizer to maintain fertility. Whether they will be more prosperous in the long run remains to be seen. Hopes for the dam to be a “wall against hunger” have not been realized. The birth rate has simply kept pace with the increased harvest. Given the population crowded along the shores now, it would be impossible to revert to the ancient high and low Nile cycle.
Archaeologically the Aswan High Dam was the single worst thing to happen to Egyptian and Meroean antiquities ever. A few high profile sites were dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground, or protected by dikes at great expense. The 1,000 other sites identified in the salvage survey all went under - 4000 years of history gone (Keating, 1975). Most sobering was that, when the archaeological surveys began, less than 100 sites were known. In spite of the massive UNESCO salvage effort, only a fraction of the sites discovered could be systematically excavated.
Huge forts of mud-brick guarding the portages, their landings, a ship portage road, and a system of wing dams making the river navigable were all discovered, minimally excavated, and then lost forever. Buhen, the greatest of all the forts, was preserved for 4000 years by the desert and neglect. With its multiple dry moats, flaking fields of fire, drawbridges, archer slits, etc, it was the most sophisticated defensive structure in the world until the Venetians finally surpassed it. Now it can only be toured virtually- the original has dissolved into a pile of mud.
Merowe Dam, Nile River
In Sudan, construction began in 2006 on the Merowe [Hamdab] Dam at Hamdab 31 km above Marawi [New Merowe]. It will flood the Fourth Cataract of the Nile and more – 160 km upriver in all. It is officially multipurpose but hydropower is the main goal. Planned to be 67 m high and 9 km long, it is the largest hydro project in Africa currently under construction (Cost: 1200 million EURs, or 1.5 billion dollars). The dam is 9 km long because the river is not in any sort of gorge here, just a broad valley with isolated hills, two of which are being dismantled for fill. The 10 hydro generators, ranked across the right-hand channel around an island at Hamdab, are nearly complete. The principal contractor is the China International Water & Electric Corp. “The creation of the reservoir lake will increase the surface area of the Nile by about 700 km_. Under the climatic conditions at the site, additional evaporation losses of up to 1,500,000,000 m_ per year can be expected. This corresponds to about 8% of the total amount of water allocated to Sudan in the Nile Waters Treaty” (Wikipedia, 2006). There have been no environmental assessments – not one.
Since the only arable land is in narrow strips fronting the river and in patches on islands within the cataract, the 50,000 people who will be displaced have nowhere to go. Beyond the narrow river bottom all is desert. The plan is to relocate them to dry farms, where they will have two years of irrigation free, and then have to buy water. The desert soil is poor and may take 40 years of nurturing to bring it up to the level of the farms lost. Basically, the displaced Manoosir farmers are being shoved into the desert to wither and die – and they know it. The Sudanese displaced by the Aswan Dam were relocated along a miserable stretch of the Atabara River, and languish there still. Several Manoosir protesters were killed by Sudanese police in April 2006. The plight of 50,000 Manoosir is lost in the larger tragedies of modern Sudan - like the hundreds of thousands killed in Darfur.
Flooding starts in Aug 2007 and may take two years to reach max pool. There are half a dozen salvage archaeology expeditions underway (Archaeology, Nov-Dec 2006, Andrew Lawler, on the Humboldt Univ. Nubian Expedition), but all are small and often met with hostility. The Manoosir don’t want any outsiders - archaeologists included -in their territory along the Fourth Cataract. In spite of this, hundreds of sites have been located, but there is no time or resources to do much with them. “The Fourth Cataract--after a brief emergence into the archaeological limelight--seems destined to slip back into obscurity, this time for eternity” (Lawler, 2006).
Rusayris Dam and Senna Dam, Blue Nile
Within Sudan, the Blue Nile is dammed in two places: Rusayris [Roseires] Dam at Damazine (1950s), and Senna Dam (1925). The river’s huge silt load has already filled both reservoirs and converted them into black, oozing mudflats. In the past that muck would have ended up on Sudanese and Egyptian fields, restoring their fertility. Now it just bakes in the sun.
The Great Gezira Plan to grow cotton with irrigation from Senna Dam long ago evaporated, but twin irrigation canals run north from the left side of the Senna Dam (3 km long, about 20 m high). They water small farms in a region stretching 200 km from the dam north to Khartoum. Along the river itself are the prodigious ruins of British pumping stations, “a museum of broken schemes” (Bangs 2005).
The interconnectedness of all things has nowhere been more glaringly obvious than along the Nile from source to sea. The broad outline of it has been known from ancient times, yet the nations along it - Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia – all dam and divert it without careful thought to consequences.
Diamer-Bhasha Dam, Indus [Sindhu] River
Located where the Hindu Kush and Himalaya Ranges come together, the Diamer-Bhasha Dam will destroy one of the world’s largest collections of rock art, carved on boulders along the upper Indus and ranging in age from Neolithic to 16th cen. Approx 50,000 carvings and 5,000 inscriptions are being documented by a German team, but the boulders are too big to be moved. They will either be inundated by Bhasha Lake or destroyed in reconstruction of 100 km of the Karakoram Highway. http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/05/nat11.htm
A groundbreaking ceremony was held in May of 2006, work on the infrastructure has begun, and construction of the dam itself is slated to begin in 2008. 30,000 people from 32 villages (including ancient Chilas) will be displaced. The dam will be about 165 km downstream of Gilgit and produce 3.36 megawatts. Water storage in perennially dry Pakistan is another major purpose, but hydro-power and water storage are not mutually supportive uses. At a cost of $6.5 billion US, the dam is intended to be the flagship of efforts to develop Pakistan’s Northern Areas. A concern of opponents is that the dam will increase local humidity, leading to more rapid melting of glaciers in the mountains nearby.
and of course, the biggest dam boondoggle of all, flooding entire canyons to their brim:
Three Gorges Dam, Ch’ang Chian (Yangtze) River
All the problems of big dams, but writ even larger, afflict the Three Gorges Dam in China, for it is the mother of all dams – the world’s largest hydro and flood control project. The stats are mind-boggling. The dam wall will be 185 meters high; the normal pool 174 meters deep. Xiling Gorge, the last of the historic and scenic Three Gorges, will be flooded nearly to its brim. One could drop the Great Pyramid into the pool behind the dam – and it would sink out of sight. 1,250,000 people, 13 cities, 140 towns, and 1352 villages are being removed to make way for the lake. By the time it is done in 2012, it will be the most expensive construction project in history. The hydros will generate 17 to 18 gigawatts (at $2000 per kilowatt). The lake will stretch upstream for 600 km, past the city of Chongqin, which will become a port for ocean-going ships. The Aswan High Dam flooded 1000 archaeological sites. The Three Gorges Dam will swallow 8000, some 10,000 years old (Winchester, 1996).
The dam will accomplish its four main goals: flood control, power generation, improved navigation, and reduction of sulphur and CO2 emissions by reducing need for coal-fired plants. The key question though is “For how long?” The Achilles heel of the Three Gorges Dam is the smallest of things – silt. The river carries an enormous silt load, 530 million tons annually, which the lake will intercept. Chongqin may become a port of ocean-going ships for a time, but there is little doubt that the silt deposited in the upper end of the reservoir will quickly fill the channel. Bed load ranging from silt to boulders will also accumulate behind the dam, and constantly threaten to clog the turbine intakes.
More serious is the effect of relieving the lower river of its silt. With a dramatically reduced sediment load, the swift Ch’ang Chian will actively erode its banks and levees downstream of the dam. Since Shanghai, China’s largest city, is built on river mud, erosion may threaten the long-term stability of its foundations. The river delta will stop growing seaward, and probably retreat. Salt water and tides will certainly move farther upriver. Shanghai (which means “Above the Sea”) is over1600 km downstream of the dam, yet the dam will affect it.
Other negative consequences include massive environmental damage, enormous relocation problems, possibly creating an underclass of “dam refugees”, increased risk of landslides, and the destruction of some of China’s finest and most iconic scenery - the Sanxia: Qutang, Wu, and Xiling Gorges.
Finally, there is the question of the long-term safety of the dam itself. It would be a prime site for terrorist attack. The site finally chosen at Sandouping has serious shortcomings for air defense (Winchester, 1996). A major landslip (such as the collapse of the Huangla Stone, an overhanging cliff 40 km upstream) into the lake could send a wave surging over the dam. In August 1975 a typhoon overwhelmed the much smaller Banqiao Dam on a tributary. “The vast structure promptly burst: the resulting lake stretched for thirty miles downstream, and whole villages were inundated in seconds. Almost a quarter of a million people died. News seeped out only in 1994, nearly twenty years after the event” (Winchester, 1996). If the Three Gorges Dam burst, millions would die.
Dai Qing, a Beijing journalist, gathered up all the papers of respected engineers and hydrologists and published them in 1989 in a book. Within two months she was in prison, but the information sparked an unprecedented vote by the National People’s Congress in 1992. They were to rubber-stamp the Three Gorges project, but, when debate was forbidden, one third voted against or abstained anyway. After the vote, all international support was withdrawn, particularly funding from the banking community. China was left to go it alone.
“A general feeling had arisen that large dams were ill-conceived projects, that few of them had realized the expectations offered for them, that all were too costly, most had caused grave environmental impacts on their surroundings, and that each was little more than pomposity writ in concrete, with totalitarian regimes favoring them most notably as a way of impressing the peasantry with the ruler’s acumen, energy, and skill.” (Winchester, 1996, pgs 227-28)
In General:
In most cases the effects of flooding the land upstream of the dam were recognized during planning. They were sometimes understated - often intentionally - but the loss of farmland and the displacement of thousands of people never came as a total surprise.
What is disturbing is how often the effects downstream of the dam were not anticipated at all. The only result usually touted is that annual flooding would now be controlled. This is seen as a good thing, until the full effects are realized. Profoundly altering a river’s annual cycle affects every living thing downstream - from man to bug - that has adapted over time to live within that cycle.
In every case, changing the annual flow regime on a big river has had a tremendous negative impact on floodplain farms, disease vectors, wildlife habitats, and offshore fisheries for hundreds, even thousands, of kilometers below the dam. Even when the likely results are pointed out, the tendency of planners has been to minimize or ignore downstream impact, possibly because it is not so easy to quantify as acreage flooded or people relocated. In addition, there is a clear pattern: the bigger the river, the worse the downstream consequences.
The loss of archaeological sites is a given. Past people chose to live by the river for good reasons: drinking water, fertile farmland, and a natural road. A rule of thumb from past salvage projects seems to be that, whatever the number of known sites at the start, the number found by the end will be at least ten times larger.
Once a dam is built, the people are stuck with the results, like it or not. The dam will never be dismantled. It would be too costly, and an admission of failure. In spite of the catastrophic results from those already in place, more are even now being built.
BIG RIVERS, NO DAMS
There are several world-class rivers that have not got their big dam yet, thankfully for very practical reasons. Instead, they have run-of-the-river hydros, which have little impact on the basin above or below.
Mekong River
Presently the Mekong River in Southeast Asia follows its annual rhythm of dry and monsoon levels as it always has. Where the ragged crest of Phu Khan He Mountain rises above the right shore, a band of resistant rock crosses the river. Starting at an elevation of 74 m, the Mekong drops 21 m in only a few km just before crossing from Laos into Cambodia. The length of the falls is usually given as between 10 and 12 km, but this is actually their width – they span 11 km.
Khone Falls is one of the widest waterfalls on any river in the world. Since the river is not confined in a gorge, the falls spread wide among parallel channels, five or six in the dry season and a dozen in the monsoon. Wherever joints have created a weak zone, there the river has etched a channel. Each channel has its own set of falls, and none are navigable. For whitewater paddlers, it is the classic “carry up and run another chute” scenario – on steroids. Endangered Irrawaddy dolphins hang out below the falls and are a local tourist attraction.
Khon Pha Pheng Falls, in the easternmost channel below Thakho, is the largest of the falls because it is the most abrupt drop, taking most of the 21 meters at once. Somphamit Falls, in a channel along the south side of Don Det (“don” means island), are somewhat smaller, since they are preceded by rapids. Other rapids and falls are in narrow channels between Don Phapheng, Don Sadam, and Don Sahong. West of Somphamit in a seasonal channel are the falls of Nam Keng, though at the height of the monsoon most of the low islands west of Don Det and Don Saniat are underwater.
The remains of a French railway, built to ease a portage past the falls, are still traceable. Built on Don Khone, a large midriver island, it ran only 5 km from the head of rapids above Nam Somphamit to Hangkhon village, at the foot of a hill where most of the channels rejoin. It probably just improved an existing portage trail.
There is no narrow mountain gap to plug. A dam would have to be over 12 km long to block all the channels and that is almost too much for even the most ardent dam builder to suggest with a straight face.
The Tad Somphamit Hydro produces power by diverting a small part of the average river flow (10,663 m3/s) for 2 km through a tunnel. It dewaters a short stretch of one channel at the height of the dry season but does nothing more. Though the river volume is less, the hydro’s output is highest in the dry season. In the monsoon, the tailwater level rises, reducing the drop. In the planning stages, Thakho Hydro would tap Khon Pha Pheng Falls with a one km tunnel to its own run-of-the-river plant.
Run-of-the-river plants may have local effects but they have no impact on the annual wet-dry cycles of a river basin. But this could change for the Mekong. A high dam in a Laotian mountain gap 24 km above Vianchang (and 2000 km from the sea) has been proposed. By ending the Monsoon high water, it would prevent floods in Laos. It would also compromise the renewal of the fertility of Lake Tonle Sap and of the Mekong Delta, breadbaskets of Cambodia and southern Vietnam. this would incidentally disrupt the fisheries of all of Southeast Asia, since Lake Tonle Sap’s annual backfilling in the monsoon is essential for the spawning cycle of all commercial species. It sounds like a cliché, but the whole Mekong watershed really is one huge interlocking ecosystem.
Congo River
In the second set of rapids forming Livingstone Falls on the Congo a short swift stretch leads into a particularly long series of continuous rapids, the Inga Rapids. The river falls 96 m in 14 km for an overall gradient of 6.9 m/km (35 ft/mi) – an incredible descent for the second largest river on earth. In the world list of waterfalls by volume Inga is number one.
Inga Rapids tumble southeast in a wide channel to Sikila Island, only to suddenly double back to the southwest and squeeze into a narrow gorge. There are no pools or breaks, but there are five major drops within the Inga Rapids: two above the corner, a wide one right on it, and two below. The last drop is particularly huge, possibly the largest rapid on earth. The Congo’s flow at Inga is 43,000 cubic m per sec (1.5 mil cfs) and it has not escaped the attention of hydro planners.
In the late 1970-early 1980s, the Inga Power Project built a diversion canal above the left shore, with one power plant [Inga Power 1] part way down, and a second [Inga Power 2] where the river doubles back. Since the Congo’s flow is fairly constant, there is no need for a dam. Rather, they are run-of-the-river hydros. Both are running at only half capacity due to poor maintenance, which was in turn due to the Congo civil war. At full capacity their output is greater than all of Italy’s power plants combined – all this with no dam. There are plans to upgrade them and add a third plant, if money can be found. All are in the Nkololo Valley.
The Grand Inga scheme goes far beyond merely adding to existing hydros. The paln is to dam the Congo and divert the entire river through the Bundi Valley. The cost of actually plugging the second largest river in the world by volume would be astronomical. In fact, it would cost a minimum of $50 billion. Planned to generate 39,000 MW, it could fill the current power demands of most of the African continent by itself, but only select regions would be tied in to the projected Pan-African grid. It is not clear where the money would come from.
Unlike the current run-of-the-river hydros, Grand Inga would disrupt the Congo’s flow and massively impact the regional ecosystems. It would also be a prime target for saboteurs. Given the enormous price tag and the poverty of the Congo, it would seem unlikely that it could ever funded, but stranger schemes have been pushed through to completion – with terrible consequences for the poor countries so favored.
and the Usumacinta River is undammed - so far.
Citations:
Bangs, Richard & Pasquale Scaturro
2005 Mystery of the Nile. New American Library, Penguin Books, London, UK
Churchill, Winston
1902 The River War, in Gutenberg E-text
1903
Forbath, Peter
1977 The Congo. Harper & Rowe
Keating, Rex
1975 Nubian Rescue. Hawthorn Books, Inc. New York, NY.
Lawler, Andrew
2006 “Damming Sudan”, Archaeology, Nov-Dec 2006. On the Merowe Dam and Humboldt Univ. Nubian Expedition
Alan Moorehead
1960 The White Nile
1962 The Blue Nile. Hamish Hamilton, London
Winchester, Simon
1996 The River at the Center of the World. Henry Holt, NY
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/dams/index.htm
Problematic big dam projects worldwide
http://www.learningsites.com/EarlyWork/buhen-2.htm
Buhen Fortress
http://www.utdallas.edu/geosciences/remsens/Nile/Cataract-Semna.html
Semna site on Nile in Sudan, now drowned
http://www.zambiatourism.com/travel/places/kariba.htm
Kariba Dam
http://www.irn.org/programs/mphanda/
Mphanda Nkuwa Dam
http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/05/nat11.htm
Diamer-Bhasha Dam
http://american.edu/ted/threedam.htm
TED case study, 3 Gorges Dam
http://www.visit-laos.com/where/champassak/outandabout.htm
Sii Pan Don and Khone Falls
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/burton/richard/b97g/chapter26.html
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Richard Burton, with map of lower Congo
http://www.irn.org/programs/congo/index.php?id=050907illusions_eng.html
Grand Inga Power Project
The past and future of the Usumacinta River watershed was the theme of the Maya Meetings, held last week in Austin Texas. For three members of the Rios Mayas organization (Ron Canter, Chris Shaw, and Dave Pentecost), it was a privilege to come and present what we have learned over the last few years, and to find new support for the campaign to protect the river from a hydroelectric dam and other threats.
I will post a selection of information, reports, maps, and video here for quick reference. Welcome to all Maya Meeting folks, and people coming here by way of the FAMSI website, which has offered its support to the work.
The Daily Glyph - Chris Shaw's Open Letter on the Usumacinta
RECENT REPORTS
PARI Online Publications - Rivers Among the Ruins: The Usumacinta, by Ron Canter
The Daily Glyph - Big Rivers, Bad Dams - by Ron Canter
VIDEO:
Maya Frontier (iPod m4v video, 217 mb, 18:30)
Defensores (iPod m4v video, 40 mb, 3:25)
River Kingdoms (iPod m4v video, 34 mb, 2:54)
You can play these in iTunes, or Quicktime player for Mac or Windows.
For best results: Download completely and then play.
Guatemalans are still well organized and vocal against the construction of dams on the Usumacinta.
Comunidades guatemaltecas protestan contra Plan Puebla Panamá - Prensa Latina
Agustín Tebalán Hernández, coordinador del Frente Petenero contra las Represas, dijo a prensa Latina que las hidroeléctricas sólo beneficiarán a las grandes empresas de México y Centroamérica.
Las instalaciones se harían una en territorio de México y tres sobre la corriente binacional del Usumacinta, cuyo cauce resultaría alterado, con graves perjuicios para la flora y la fauna circundantes.
"Cientos de kilómetros cuadrados de la principal reserva natural de Guatemala, con extensos bosques y una enorme riqueza ecológica, desaparecerían", dijo Tebalán Hernández.
Longest underground river found | Tech&Sci | Science | Reuters.com
Charles Golden and Andrew Scherer update their work from 2006. The border between Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras, as well as the modern border between Mexico and Guatemala.
An excellent profile of the people who live just across the Usumacinta from Frontera Corozal, who have survived war and dislocation and now are well organized against a dam on the river.
elPeriódico de Guatemala » Actualidad » La vida en la rivera del Usumacinta
La Técnica
In real life, in Richmond.
Powhatan Indian Style.
Thanks to Ron Canter for the link.
Thanks to Chris, a pointer to a good book on dams and the environment.
Chris Shaw is co-directing a new environmental journalism fellowship program at Middlebury College. Here's the press release.
Middlebury College announces establishment of fellowship program in environmental journalism
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Trópico Verde and Conservation Strategy Fund have begun a study of the impacts of the proposed road through the Peten. They have concluded so far that it will result in the destruction of 60% of the forest cover in the Rio Azul National Park within 15 years.
PrensaLibre.com - Temen desastre por carretera
A bitter victory for the Sierra del Lacandon biosphere reserve. Can Guatemala find a way to protect its people and its resources, from poverty and narcotrafficking?
PrensaLibre.com - Desalojan a invasores de Sierra del Lacandón
This is the most complete newspaper report yet on the problems of narcotrafficking and large illegal settlements in the Sierra del Lacandon Park, on the banks of the Usumacinta River in Guatemala.
NPR : Guatemala's Parks Lie in Path of Drug Traffickers
GUATEMALA: Following the Latest Route of the Central American Migrants
Congratulations to Ron Canter for the attention that his work with Native Trails is finally getting. The travel section of the NY Times today has a beautiful article on the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, from northern Maine to southern Adirondacks in New York State. It shows that three people with an obsession can make a difference.
The Magnificent Obsession of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail - New York Times
La construcción de presas unifica las protestas y resistencia de los afectados
Thanks to Alfonso for pointing this out. A good summary of the problems with dams, in Mexico and the world, and the continued plans for large dam construction in Mexico.
México insiste en construir más presas, pese a sus comprobados inconvenientes
The Mexican ministry in charge of the environment and natural resources has given the go ahead for the 210 meter tall La Yesca dam. It will be built on the Santiago River in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit. Other Mexican development and environmental groups continue to oppose it.
Minimiza Semarnat los daños ecológicos que ocasionará la presa La Yesca
I've just completed a 3 minute introduction to the story I shot this spring in Mexico and Guatemala. The music is "Perfidia", a 1940 hit by Chiapas composer Alberto Dominguez, performed as a moody guitar instrumental by Café Tacuba.
On the Maya Frontier - preview (iPod m4v video, 21 mb, 3:33)
You can play this in iTunes, or Quicktime player for Mac or Windows.
For best results: Download completely and then play.
Thanks to everyone who has helped me, this year and in the past.
Previous videos from the Maya region:
elPeriódico de Guatemala - El potencial de generación eléctrica en Guatemala
Los ríos de Guatemala poseen un potencial para la generación de energía de 10 mil 900 megavatios y la capacidad técnicamente aprovechable es de unos 5 mil megavatios. El Instituto Nacional de Electrificación (INDE) posee un mapa con 240 sitios en los cuales es factible construir una central hidroeléctrica, de los cuales cuenta con perfiles y estudios de prefactibilidad y factibilidad de 104 proyectos. Las inversiones potenciales en los proyectos hidroeléctricos alcanzan la cifra de US$5 mil 773 millones. Los proyectos más grandes son Xalalá (que saldrá a licitación dentro de un par de meses) y Serchil, ambos ubicados sobre el Río Chixoy, con 495 y 202 megavatios respectivamente. Chulac, sobre el río Cahabón, con una capacidad de generación de 440 y 340 megavatios, según la opción. Los sitios Piedras Negras y Salvamento, sobre el Río Usumacinta, con un potencial de 413 y 437 megavatios.
Not only in Latin America are dams controversial. Even dams that affect few people are subject to debate.
A Massive Dam, Under Way in Laos, Generates Worries - New York Times
El Heraldo de Chiapas - Peligran hidroelectricas por deforestacion y azolvamiento
This is several weeks old, but it is the clearest signal yet that CFE is considering a renewed effort to build a dam on the Usumacinta.
México, D.F. - Concretó Fox un solo megaproyecto: El Cajón
“México no tiene tanta agua como otros países, pero tiene montañas que le sirven bien para desarrollar proyectos hidroeléctricos”, dice Humberto Marengo, director de proyectos hidroeléctricos de la CFE.
Marengo explicó que hay proyectos sobre el Río Usumacinta que podrían generar el doble de energía de la presa El Cajón con apenas la mitad de la inversión.
Es el caso del proyecto Tenosique, en Tabasco, en donde con una cortina de apenas 22 metros de altura se podría tener una planta de 450 megawatts de capacidad y que podría funcionar unas 18 horas diarias, por el caudal del Usumacinta; sin embargo, El Cajón sólo funciona para los picos de demanda, explicó el funcionario.
En energía hidráulica, la actual administración tiene su mayor apuesta con el proyecto El Cajón, que no es sino parte de un sistema de presas que incluye la de Aguamilpa y que se concluirá con La Yesca, sobre el mismo río Santiago.
Para el director de Proyectos Hidroeléctricos de la CFE, el problema es la subutilización de los ríos, por ejemplo, en Europa el Danubio tiene más de 20 mil megawatts de capacidad de generación instalados y es apenas 75% del caudal del Usumacinta en el sureste del país.
I just ran across this 2 year old document from the Mexican Senate, considering the importance of the Pantanos de Centla and mentioning the longterm danger of desertification if the Boca del Cerro dam project moves forward.
Referring to a study by CONAE, the national energy conservation commission, on minihydraulic energy, this report brings up recent rumors of renewed dam plans. Good news though that someone in Mexico is thinking of alternatives to dams and flooding.
Diario Presente - Tabasco, potencia para generar luz
What should be a cautionary tale, for Mexican leaders considering Boca del Cerro.
International Rivers Network: South Africa
One-third of Chiapas deforested or degraded. A call for the next governor of Chiapas to address reforestation. Among the presidential candidates, Lopez Obrador and Calderon have both backed reforestation as a key part of development in their campaign speeches.
El Heraldo de Chiapas - Asunto de seguridad nacional, recuperar bosques de Chiapas
Two good stories in the Chiapas paper: on silting of Chiapas rivers shortening the life of hydroelectric plants as the land loses all topsoil; and the politics of the environment in Mexico.
El Heraldo de Chiapas - Peligran presas hidroeléctricas por deforestación
El Heraldo de Chiapas - Medio Ambiente; una Bandera Electoral
I've heard that the Mexican electrical commission, the CFE, has hired a northern Mexico university to create a new study on a 30 to 40 meter dam at Boca del Cerro, on the Usumacinta River. It seems that this time around, the emphasis will be on the national needs for power, not the creation of a regional grid under Plan Puebla Panama. The need for water in the Yucatan, to supply the growing tourist trade, will also be used as a justification.
Other than those new principles, the campaign will likely be similar to the one in 2002-2003, when the tactic was to restrict any public information about the dam. Here's a translation of an editorial from that period that I missed at the time, but which is newly relevant.
Dick Russell - Editorials by Homero Aridjis
An inspiration in our small resistance against the Usumacinta dam.
AlterNet: Arundhati Roy: Back In the U.S.A.
Trying to get ready for a trip to Merida and a meeting on the Maya Forest, I came across this inspiring online tool created by The Nature Conservancy. Document library, collaboration/workspaces, other resources.
Welcome to the new ConserveOnline
Thanks to Alfonso for these links. First, regarding problems at the nearly completed El Cajon dam.
Pendiente, la remediación de daños ambientales causados por El Cajón
And the UN's requests to the government regarding La Parota and the local communities:
Gmail - La Jornada: Pide la ONU consulta sobre La Parota
El Financiero en linea - Promete Calderón plan de reordenamiento de frontera sur de México
RiosMayas partner, chief cartographer, and maniac paddler Ron Canter sent this story, about the 740 mile canoe trail that he's helped establish in the northeast United States. Another link in the Maya/Adirondack connection. Float on!
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise - Saranac Lake to host grand opening of canoe trail
Good sketch of biological research in Lacantun Biosphere Reserve.
Lacantun Biosphere Reserve - Park Profile - Conservation and research
For the first time, Guatemala is participating in this cultural festival, celebrating all of the area touched by the Usumacinta River. Begins May 5. And I won't be there. Too bad.
Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche y Guatemala, unidos en festejo cultural | 2006-04-28 | La Crónica de Hoy
Subcomandante Marcos, now calling himself Subdelegado Zero, warned the Mexican government that building the La Parota dam in the state of Guerrero would set off a new war in the southeast, that is, Chiapas. He made the statement while on the national tour known as "La otra campaña", the other campaign, in this presidential election year.
Desencadenaría conflicto armado proyecto impulsado por Fox: EZLN - Prensa Latina
In response, the leader of the PAN party in Guerrero called him a terrorist.
Líder del PAN tacha de "terroristas" a Marcos y opositores a La Parota
The recovery from hurricanes and mudslides in the region is ongoing. I've just received an update from Kenneth Wood in Santiago Atitlan on plans to rebuild the hospital there. Click MORE for the update. And please donate.
Dear Friends of Santiago Atitlan,
Happy Semana Santa!
Pueblo a Pueblo is pleased to inform you that after many weeks of generous
volunteer labor on the part of our webmaster, Marc Quimbey at Westwind
Studios in Arkansas; our new website is up and running. It reflects many of
the new initiatives that we have begun, as the people of Santiago Atitlan
recover from the disaster. These include:
Hospitalito Atitlan: The decision has been made that the Hospitalito cannot
return to its original site in Panabaj. Together, Fundacion K'aslimaal (the
Hospitalito governing board) and Pueblo a Pueblo have begun a Capital
Campaign to purchase land and build a new, permanent Hospitalito for the
community. The interim Hospitalito continues to provide medical services as
we develop these plans.
Mother/Child Program: With the new website, Pueblo a Pueblo and the
Hospitalito have launched this individual sponsorship program to ensure the
health of pregnant T'zutujil women and their infants. U.S. sponsors will be
able to develop an Email relationship with their "adopted" mother and infant
and the $25/mo. sponsorship will fund prenatal, delivery, post-natal and
well-baby care to the neediest, at-risk mothers and their infants.
Child Education and Health Program: The children of Panabaj who survived
the mudslides, have endured the loss of their family members, friends and
homes. Most are now living in temporary shelters. This sponsorship program
is designed to support a local Panabaj, T'zutujil school and ensure that
these 500 children can continue their education, receive a daily healthy
meal and health care services. Each sponsor can communicate via email with
their child, sharing words of encouragement, pictures and support. Besides
individual sponsors, Pueblo a Pueblo is particularly interested in
developing sponsorship by groups of U.S. students (classrooms, Spanish
clubs, etc.) - providing educational and service learning opportunities for
U.S. students.
Other improvements you will note on the website:
Volunteer information - both medical and non-medical.
Santiago Atitlan Update page that feature new events every two
weeks.
Medical and non-Medical Wish Lists.
Other Disaster Relief initiatives.
Secure on-line donation capacity that will reduce our overhead
expenses.
On behalf of our Board of Directors, let me take this opportunity to again
thank you for your support of the T'zutujil people. It is an honor for us
to assist them to realize their dreams and to work with the many dedicated,
thoughtful and caring volunteers and donors. We encourage you to visit our
new website and appreciate any assistance you can give in promoting this
cause to your family and friends.
Kenneth Wood
President
Pueblo a Pueblo Inc.
P.O. Box 11486
Washington, DC 20008
tel: (202) 302-0622
www.puebloapueblo.org
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
The Frente Petenero contra las Represas is active again. On this year's day of celebration of rivers they demonstrated again against dams on the Usumacinta. At the same time, I was floating down the Usu in a one-man raft, to the far side of Yaxchilan, and exploring the neck of the meander with guide Juan Mayo, from Frontera Corozal.
PrensaLibre.com - Rechazan edificación de represas
Here's an overlay of a Piedras Negras map, from Stephen Houston's team at PN, that Ron Canter and I placed on Google Earth over the weekend.
In 2004 Sheri Tingey lent me an Alpacka raft that I enjoyed for 3 days on the Usumacinta before it was, let's say, lost. The 2006 version that I just bought seems even better, tougher, and has more tie-down loops standard.
I just found this BusinessWeek interview with Sheri.
2005 was a good year for Sheri and Alpacka:
Backpacker.com - Editors' Choice 2005
Humedales corren grave riesgo en Guatemala - Prensa Latina
El río Usumacinta, el más extenso y caudaloso del país y que marca buena parte de la frontera con México, se ha preservado bastante bien, pero el gobierno realiza estudios para construir allí varias hidroeléctricas que le causarían un daño permanente.
This is a couple of years old, but it is an unusually detailed report, in English, on Plan Puebla Panama and the resistance to it. I'll look for an update.
Americas Program | Citizen Action Series: Resisting the Plan Puebla-Panama
Arte contemporáneo, irrumpe en la frontera sur - El Universal Online - Cultura
Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacon (EPIRB) - USCG Navigation Center
I've posted an annotated Usumacinta tour, minus the Canter maps (too big a file for the system) on the Google Earth Community forum.
Google Earth Community: Maya Usumacinta Tour
Here again is my latest version that includes Ron Canter's overlay maps, and starts and finishes in my NYC neighborhood:
The Daily Glyph - Improved Google Earth Usu Map
And other recent posts on GE and OS X:
The Daily Glyph - Google Earth, OS X and offline
The Daily Glyph - Garmin GPS Mac OS X compatible
The statement on the Mexican web page does not mention hydroelectric power or the Usumacinta. But the recently signed pact is a new declaration of the old Plan Puebla Panama and bears watching.
México - Presidencia de la República | Actividades
Iniciativa Energética Mesoamericana.
I've tinkered with the Usumacinta River tour for Google Earth that I posted a few weeks back. I fit Ron Canter's hand-drawn maps to the terrain a little better and changed the views on a few spots. Here's the revised version.
New York to the Usumacinta and Back (Revised 1/3/2006)
UPDATE:
See this post for links to many more Usumacinta River maps, overlays, and tours:
The Daily Glyph - FAMSI Report - SCHERER: Tixan, SDL
If you need one, buy before Jan. 15 to avoid a price rise. Great packboat!
At the close of a report (from Dec. 12) on plans for a Central American oil refinery and a gas pipeline from Mexico to Panama, the Guatemalan minister of Foreign Relations, Jorge Briz, is quoted as saying there are no plans for a dam on the Usumacinta.
PrensaLibre.com - Instalación de refinería se decidirá hasta 2006
Aseguró que ni México ni Guatemala consideran construir la megahidroeléctrica en el río Usumacinta.
The Google Earth application for Mac OS X has just been leaked in a beta version, and of course I had to play with it. I've done a first stab at a tour of the Usumacinta River, starting and ending in New York City. I've also done an overlay of Ron Canter's hand drawn maps, based on his study and travel on the river. Ron has a wealth of information on Maya sites and trails that adds a lot to the already spectacular 3D display that Google has provided.
The file below is large (8.4mb) but it can be opened in the Google Earth application. Depending on your choices for other overlays, it runs pretty smoothly.
New York to the Usumacinta and Back (updated and improved 2:45am)
Threats and bribes make no difference to the leader of one community that is affected by the dam construction in Nayarit.
La lucha contra la presa El Cajón, aun "a costa de mi vida", advierte ejidatario
Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences faces financial troubles and understaffing.
Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/04/2005 | Dinosaur museum is itself threatened
The academy raised money to establish the DNA lab and equip it with an automated sequencer that reads DNA extracted from tissue samples. It has raised $1.3 million of $5 million needed to fund staff and other equipment and endow it.
The academy used the DNA lab to help determine that a catfish found in a river in Chiapas, Mexico, was a previously undocumented species.
Here are my previous posts on that catfish, Lacantunia Enigmatica.
There is an urgent letter to biologists that is making the rounds, concerning threats to river life presented by dam plans in Mesoamerican rivers. I'll post it, in English and Spanish, on the jump to this page (click MORE).
Dear friends of MesoAmerican rivers:
This letter is going out to a sampling of ichthyologists and others concerned with Mesoamerican rivers. If it resonates with you, please share it widely. We should all be deeply concerned about the potential catastophic changes which could affect Mesoamerican rivers from Chiapas to the Choco as a by product of infrastructure projects related to PPP, CAFTA, SIEPAC and other manifestations of the Free Trade movement. According to a study by the Conservation Strategy Fund, no less than 381 hydroelectric dams are currently proposed for the region, with further proposals possible.
Given the high proportion of diadromous fishes and shrimps in these rivers, the potential is for numerous extirpations, leading to catastrophic ecosystem alterations, some of them in high profile protected areas created specifically to preserve biodiversity. The precedent exists in the larger West Indian islands, where the native fresh water fauna is similar, and where drastic alterations have been documented by Pringle, et al. in Puerto Rico and Fievet, et al. in Guadeloupe. In our own work in Costa Rica and Panama, the Talamanca Stream Biomonitoring Program of Asociacion ANAI has shown that 71 – 100% of the individual fish (and virtually all of the shrimp) in high gradient streams within and downstream of the La Amistad International Park are of diadromous forms. In terms of biomass, the diadromous proportion must be even higher.
This matter came to our attention as a result of concerns by indigenous communities who would be directly affected by dams proposed for the Changuinola/Teribe watershed in Panama. However, this is just one manifestation of a much larger concern. There is discussion, and in some cases (Rio Pacuare in Costa Rica, Rio Usumacinta in Guatemala/Mexico) effective opposition to hydro projects. However, in no other case of which we are aware has the phenomenon of diadromy and consequent potential ecosystem effects been brought to bear – even though it would appear to be the chief common concern in all the watersheds of the Mesoamerican isthmus.
We are doing what we can within our work area in Panama and Costa Rica, and are working on publication of several papers and opinion pieces. However, it strikes us as curious that none of the biologists of greater accomplishment and renown in the 9 country region have spoken out. We invite you to do so, or to share concerns with us. If a high percentage of existing infrastructure plans are realized, we shall all be left with a great deal less to study. Please share this information widely.
We hope (pending funding) to be able to attend the Ecological Society of America’s conference “Ecology in an Era of Globalization: Challenges and Opportunities”, in Merida, Mexico, January 8-12, 2006, and for Maribel Mafla of our group to present a student paper on this theme. We were invited to host a workshop on the issue, but simply did not have time to devote to an organizing task of this magnitude. However, Ms. Mafla’s presentation might provide an excellent opportunity to accomplish the same ends less formally by convening a discussion group with a wider regional reach than we can bring to bear.
Thank you for your attention and please spread the word. Feel free to contact me at this address or Ms. Mafla at mmafla@anaicr.org with questions or comments.
Sincerely,
William O. McLarney, Ph.D.
Director, Talamanca Stream Biomonitoring Project
Estimados amigos de los rios Mesoamericanos:
Esta carta va dirigida a diversos ictiologos y otros preocupados por los rios Mesoamericanos. Si resuena con usted, favor de compartirlo por todas partes. Todos debemos de preocuparnos profundamente con los cambios catastroficos que podrian ocurrir en los rios Mesoamericans, desde Chiapas hasta el Choco, como productos derivados de proyectos de infraestructura relacionados con PPP, CAFTA, SIEPAC y demas manifestaciones del movimiento del Libre Comercio. Segun un estudio por el Conservation Strategy Fund, no menos de 381 represas hidroelectricas son actualmente propuestas por la region, con la posibilidad de aun mas propuestas.
Dado la alta proporcion de peces y camarones diadromos en estos rios, la potencial es de extirpaciones numerosos llevando a alteraciones ecologicas catastroficas, algunos de ellas en areas protegidas de alto perfil, creadas especificamente para preservar la biodiversidad. Existe precedente en las islas mas grandes de las Antillas, donde la fauna acuatica nativa es parecida, donde casi todos los rios son represados, y donde alteraciones drasticas han sido documentados por Pringle, et al. en Puerto Rico y Fievet, et al. en Guadeloupe. En nuestro propio trabajo en Costa Rica y Panama, el Programa de Biomonitoreo de Rios y Quebradas de la Asociacion ANAI ha mostrado que 71 – 100% de los individuos de peces (y casi la totalidad de los camarones) en rios y quebradas de alta gradiente dentro y aguas abajo del Parque Internacional La Amistad pertenecen a especies diadromas. En terminos de biomasa, la proporcion de animales diadromos tiene que ser aun mas alta.
Este asunto llego a nuestra atencion a consecuencia de inquietudes expresados por comunidades indigenas quienes serian directamente afectadas por las represas propuestas en la cuenca Changuinola/Teribe en Panama. Sin embargo, esta es una sola manifestacion de un problema mucho mas grande. Hay discusion, y en algunos casos (Rio Pacuare en Costa Rica, Rio Usumacinta en Guatemala/Mexico) oposicion efectiva a proyectos hidroelectricos. Sin embargo, no no estamos enterados de ningun otro caso en que se han aplicado el argumento basado en el fenomeno de diadromia y los efectos consecuentes en ecosistemas – aunque parece ser la amenaza principal que comparten todas las cuencas del istmo Mesoamericano.
Estamos haciendo lo que podemos dentro de nuestra area de trabajo en Panama y Costa Rica, y estamos trabajando en varios articulos y obras de opinion. Sin embargo, nos sorprende que ninguno de los biologos de mayor capacidad y renombre en una region de 9 paises han denunciado el problema. Los invitamos a ustedes a hablar claramente, y a compartir sus preocupaciones con nosotros. Si logran realizar una alta porcentaje de los planes de infraestructura existentes, todos quedaremos con mucho menos para estudiar. Favor de compartir esta informacion extensivamente.
Esperamos (pendiente financiamiento) poder asistir en la conferencia del Ecological Society of America “Ecologia en una Epoca de Globalizacion: Desafios y Oportunidades” en Merida, Mexico, 8-12 de enero, 2006, y que Maribel Mafla de nuestro grupo presente un papel estudiantil sobre este tema. Fuimos invitados a presentar un taller sobre la cuestion, pero sencillamente no tuvimos tiempo para dedicar a una tarea organizativa de esta magnitud. Sin embargo la presentacion de la Sta. Mafla podria proveer una oportunidad excelente para lograr las mismas finalidades de una manera menos formal, por medio de convenir un grupo de discusion con un alcance geografico mucho mas amplio que lo de nosotros como una organizacion local.
Gracias por su atencion y por favor de difundir esta informacion. No tengan duda en contactarme en este direccion o a Sta. Mafla en mmafla@anaicr.org con preguntas o comentarios.
Atentamente,
William O. McLarney, Ph.D.
Director, Programa de Biomonitoreo de Rios deTalamanca
Well, they took our name, but if they want to be known as an international destination for their rivers, they may work to protect them.
caribepreferente.com - Tabasco busca convertirse en destino internacional con "Ríos Mayas"