Tag: Cambodia

The struggle for the soul of the Mekong River
Opinion

The struggle for the soul of the Mekong River

In June of this year, a Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report ranked the Mekong Basin as the world's most productive freshwater fishery, accounting for over 15% of global annual freshwater fish catch. Meanwhile, researchers at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimate that the contribution accounts for a quarter of the world's freshwater catch. This inland fishery is critical to the food security of tens of millions living in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, and is fuelled by the Mekong River's natural flow cycle.Typically, the Mekong transitions like clockwork around July from the dry season period of relatively low flow to an extreme wet season pulse bringing floodwaters that nourish the entirety of the basin.Each year, this flood pulse drives water from the Mekong up
Water wars: Mekong River another front in U.S.-China rivalry
World

Water wars: Mekong River another front in U.S.-China rivalry

With Beijing overtaking Washington in both spending and influence over downstream countries, the Mekong River has become a new front in the U.S.-China rivalry, according to environmentalists and officials.It’s a confrontation in which the Donald Trump administration is losing ground.The two powers’ struggle recently moved into the realm of science — with the U.S. and Chinese governments each touting different reports about whether China’s 11 dams on the river were harming nations downstream.China’s dams have given it extensive control of the waters that flow down to Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, which have long depended on the river for agriculture and fisheries and it is this control that enables China to exclude the United States from a role after decades of promoting Me