By Song Kinh

Lao shines like an emerald in a sea of Asian ecological brown. Movie makers could well send location spotters to Lao if they were thinking elvish or faery. The karst landscapes cut fanciful horizon lines which can, depending on the light, be sinister or frivolous. The beauty of Lao’s natural landscape with its primary forest, dancing with its myriad cultures and biodiversity, is alluring to those wanting to escape mass tourism’s chain hotels, spas and fusion food.

In comparison, Lao’s neighbors, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China, are regarded as terminally ill in environmental terms.

It is not surprising that at least four reports have done the sums and recommended that carefully managed ecotourism, based on Lao’s wonderfully rich natural heritage, would provide regular income to poor villages. It seems so simple.

Ban Nha, one hour south of Vientiane is a great example. Its location near a mineral lick and river frequented by elephants, has brought the village significant income. With technical assistance they built a hide from which visitors can watch the nighttime antics of the great pachyderms. The Gibbon Experience in Bokeo has proved to be so good in raising local incomes that the Governor of Attapeu has asked if the team could replicate it in his province—that is, if they can rescue enough forest from rapacious loggers. The internationally famous Boat Landing in Luang Namtha is another working example of eco tourism in Laos. But the kidnapping of one of its co-owners, Sompawn Khantisouk, by what eyewitness accounts define as ‘men in green uniforms’ has sent a chilling message to the world and has cast on a shadow on the government’s true intent. Remember Asia is the region of symbols.

“The rabbit asked the elephant why he had left the forest”. Next child. “The elephants said that the greedy people had cut down all the trees and he was left with nothing to eat.” In Lao, even 7 year olds are aware that their natural environment is being devastated. The children looked somber last week as they made this story up, each one contributing a sentence.

Lao people at times seem to be living a video loop playing the same story over and over: the disappearing forests, the loss of animal habitat, and the loss of their future. The forest is planted in the hearts of most Lao. It sustains their bodies and spirits. Dark jokes do little to mollify the simmering rage amongst adults at the vast tracts of land being converted to huge projects from which only the few benefit. One friend said to me ”You know how to make money in Lao? Offer swimming lessons, as we shall soon all be under water when all the hydro-dams are built.”

Because while the public talk is of poverty reduction, conservation and eco tourism, the private reality translates into the same destructive practices seen all across the region.

Darkly, there are increasing whispers that under the Royalist government, things were better. Now, my friends hiss, the party members only want power, big cars and shopping trips to Paris. Smooth roads for the few, they argue, are diverting funds better used for education for the many. We are losing our land.

So What’s Going Wrong?

On paper and in the press, the Lao government supports eco tourism. Recently the Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh announced an end to land appropriation for large projects and has made all the right noises about natural resource management. To conserve forests the Minister of Industry and Commerce announced to the National Assembly the closure of 2,088 out of 2,888 sawmills and furniture factories around the country. These words were greeted by polite applause. But it is not clear if what was meant aligned with what was heard. Interestingly, the Economic Monitor reports that there were only 125-150 sawmills in the country (p. 19). (Additional reports clarify that the sawmill closures referenced here, while reportedly substantial, targeted mostly small mills with installed capacity of less than 100m3 per year. The big mills, all 200 or so, are still up and running. A survey of just 19 big mills in 2006 showed that these alone had log input of nearly 250,000 m3 that year, triple the approved quota for the whole country—and that was just what they willingly disclosed. Real input was probably at least double that. Those 19 mills constitute only 10% of the big mills in the country. One begins to get a sense for just how much is being cut).

Behind the scenes terribly destructive projects are being given the go-ahead. Three of the most egregious are listed below: Nam Theun 1, Banpu Lignite Mine in Hongsa, and the proposed Don Sahong Dam at Khone falls. All of these have the capacity to devastate, not merely affect, the wonders that travelers come here to experience, and it makes me wonder if cross cultural perceptions of what constitutes eco tourism are the same, or even if the government seriously wants to establish systems that both empower local people and channel money away from its ever expanding private coffers.

The experience of community forestry in Xekong (Hodgdon 2007) seems to indicate that while making laws and issuing policies that support village management of forest resources, the government is actually opposed to villagers either participating in or benefiting from activities that are potentially profitable, which are therefore subsumed by the State (the State being Party members and their chosen agents). Those involved in eco tourism should find Hodgdon’s report essential reading(1).

The seemingly endless number of Vietnamese Post Leggo Gothic style hotels embedded in vast aprons of cement, may be what the government of Lao thinks travelers really want. The thought that people may actually want to pay to sweat in a jungle trying to spot a shy gibbon, or spend a week in a ‘primitive’ village with no facilities, may not be within the ken of a Lao Nouveau Bourgeoisie to whom roughing it may be defined as a power cut which interrupts the air con.

Maybe felang (Western) materialist culture cannot appreciate the incredibly subtle nuances and insidious corrosiveness of political inter-family rivalry, or ancient debts that may now be being paid off.

Consultants report that Government departments, many of which represent family as well as sectoral interests, do not collaborate to enact government policies that could make eco tourism an operating reality. Departments are forced to compete for funds. A matter of concern to Laos environment agency (STEA) may be given a hearty nod by Ministry of Forestry (MAF) or smoothed over by a ‘fine’. Overseas aid agencies, including the development banks, are being outraced by cashed-up Asian entrepreneurs whose behavior is not informed by international human rights or environmental standards.

In Government managed newspapers, Ministers take credit for overseas funded projects, giving the impression that the government may want to be seen as the sole benefactor. Eco tourism risks cracking the plate of perceived dependence.

Patronage could explain projects exemplified by the new national stadium south of Vientiane on Highway 13 south, which resulted in the clear cutting of one of the last stands of virgin forest in proximity to Vientiane. Nearby, secondary regrowth was cleared to make way for a suburban development to exclusively house Chinese. Chinese-owned casinos are springing up like weeds. The biggest, in Luang Namtha, is absurdly large and ugly, as are its branches currently being built in Udomxai and Vientiane Province. A similar casino planned for a riverside location in the heritage city of Luang Prabang is being greeted with mute horror by Lao and felang alike.

(1) No Success Like Failure: Policy Versus Reality in Lao’s Forestry Sector,. B. Hodgdon Watershed. Vol 12. No 1. July 200- Feb 2007. Pp 37

Nam Theun 1

The Nam Kading National Protected Area (NKNPA) is regarded by internationally august bodies such as the International Union For the Conservation of Nature as being of global importance, having one of the finest examples of pristine biodiversity in the world. Many of the animals and plant forms are thought to have survived undisturbed since the previous ice age. Unfortunately the NPA is bisected by a steep gorge made by the Nam Kading river, making it ideal for a hydropower dam. Gamuda Berhard, a well connected Malaysian engineering giant, along with EDCO, the private investment wing of the Thai electricity authority, scored the contract to build that dam.

The Protected Area’s integrity was preserved by its inaccessibility. The dam will breach that making the NPA accessible both by boat and by road. Access roads, cut through the protected area, have already claimed their first victim. A wild elephant was recently found slaughtered for its tusks and other valuable parts. Elephant numbers are drastically falling in Lao, once known as the Land of a Million Elephants, and each death is a tragedy.

Carelessly constructed access roads have buried a mineral lick used by wildlife and have polluted rivers used by the local people for washing and drinking. Explosives have been stored in unmarked, unlocked and unguarded huts in areas where adults and children have ready access.

The 175 meter high dam wall will present an impassable barrier to the spawning migration of at least 20 fish species, and places additional strain on endangered species.

The Nam Theun 1 hydropower project has slid past the eyes of environmental groups who have consistently focused their attack on the Nam Theun 2. But the NTI project is in fact far worse in its long term implications. The clean green image of dams has been sullied by recent studies that indicate methane emissions are much higher than first thought, even after biomass clearance.

The performance to date of the chief contractor Gamuda is far from reassuring. Indications are that instead of the due diligence promised, they are going to run a very shady project. Gamuda commenced work before approvals were given and has ridden roughshod over Lao laws and regulations. Villagers reluctant to move will have no recourse. Eco tourism could have saved this site through a system of selective high priced permits for limited incursions for short periods.

When consulted about their concerns about the project, villagers inevitably named environmental destruction as being of primary importance.

Banpu Lignite Mine in Hongsa

Last year 10,000 people descended on the dusty town of Hongsa. Some had taken 2-3 days to get there by motorcycle. Others had come from Luang Prabang on the slow boat – a 7 hour thumping journey followed by another 3 hours by local truck. Others more fortunate (and wealthy) flew by specially chartered choppers. The occasion? Lao’s first ever elephant festival.

Hongsa is home to 50 domesticated elephants who work for a living. Owned by groups of families who have developed a culture of elephants that extends down through generations, it is in Hongsa that has the last of the Master Mahouts: old men redolent with wisdom and secrets of elephant taming; keepers of the elephant rituals which induct the pachyderms to the world of men.

Into this environment infused with tourist potential, the government had given the green light to a large lignite mine and power plant. This will occupy prime river front land 5 kilometers from the festival site, in the very village where relatives were called in to help serve food and drinks to the tsunami of visitors who arrived. The invited government officials could hardly have missed the huge numbers of tourists, the joy and delight in sharing space with these extraordinary animals, the pride and dignity of the hosts, the people’s cash stuffed pockets . . . or maybe they didn’t.

Those familiar with energy and climate change know that lignite is lowest grade brown coal, putting out low grade energy and maximum carbon dioxide and carbon disulphide emissions. High levels of carbon disulphide in the atmosphere create acid rain in the wet season. The gas causes severe respiratory problems. While the technology exists to reduce these emissions, the company involved, Banpu Thailand, has one of the worst environmental records in the region.

Their lignite plant in Thailand has been the target for bitter and prolonged demonstrations by the community who accuse Banpu of causing the higher than normal mortality rates in the area. Thailand has a far better regulatory system in place and freer press than Lao. Behind the smiles and handshakes are the very real risk to the future of the elephant herds and the mahouts in the area.

Initially the mahouts will be drawn by the opportunity to make money by clearing the site, possibly forfeiting lower paid work in the tourist industry in Luang Prabang (2), but the work is risky and arduous for elephant and mahout. Recently several Honga elephants died from overwork.

(2) The Vientiane Times reported the owner of an elephant trekking company making up to USD4000 each day in the high season, but other reports indicate that much of this is not passed onto the elephants owners.

Proposed Don Sahong Dam, Khone Falls

One of Lao’s major tourist attractions, the spectacular Khone Falls, bridges the Lao-Cambodia border. A major impediment to early French mercantile expansionism, the falls plummet some 20-30 meters in a semicircle of thunderous water below the cluster of tiny islands that provide a good living from the simple tourist accommodation given to travelers. Those I have met who stayed there told me that after a day they became enraptured with the peace, the absence of machine noise, and what they identified as almost spiritual energy of the place.

Yet a feasibility study is underway which has many scientists very worried indeed. The project is a so called ‘run of the river’ dam across the falls to be built by Malaysia’s Mega First Corporation Berhad. The Memorandum of Understanding with the Lao Government has been signed, and as one local consultant told me, “ In my experience no feasibility study has said no to a project.”

The area is home to the few remaining Irrawaddy dolphins and is the center of some of the richest fish resources in Asia. Around USD 2.1 million is generated annually by fishing in the lower Mekong and many of these species are triggered into migration by water level changes. The fish, like the French, are unable to climb the wall of water. Instead they navigate the complex channels known as hoo in Lao. The dam is planned for deepest of those hoos and will effectively block upstream migration, devastating fishing both upstream and downstream. The New York Times recently published a collection of photographs featured the highly skilled Lao fishermen using traditional rickety traps and nets in that very hoo. While their activities were terrifying, they are part of what makes this location ideal for ecotourism, which appreciates this fragile interface between human and nature.

Summary

While the above may paint a depressing picture, it is also hopeful in that should point the way to creative problem solving and initiatives. In describing the disappointing outcomes of the Xekong forestry project, Hodgden emphasized the importance of clarifying goals and making sure that policy and projects are not done on the run. All initiatives should be presented in Lao language so that all players are clear about what is meant.

The success of tourism in Lao may have resulted in some high level complacency. Short term gain may have overshadowed long term replicability.

Lao has boasted that it will be the “Battery of Asia”. The reality is Lao’s neighbors benefit from power while Lao is left with the environmental consequences. Ironically a Lao company Sunlabob, has won yet another international prize for its solar energy projects. They bring the electricity to villagers that the big hydro-schemes do not, at a cost lower than kerosene. The Vientiane Times pointedly told readers that the company gets no help from the Government. Sunlabob’s success has made no difference to the frantic pace at which new dams are being contracted. Snorkel and flippers at the ready, my friends.

It seems that Lao, for years invaded by neighbors, who were then rebuffed in battles that have become part of the national mythology, is no longer at risk of arrows and spears. Now the invaders are armed with laptops and spreadsheets, contracts, plans and briefcases full of money. And they are being welcomed with open arms to create green deserts of rubber or eucalyptus plantations, clear fell forests, construct dams or build bizarre replicas of rich men’s dreams.

Copyright Song Kinh