Environment
Press Release: Mozambique, Mega-Dam will Exacerbate Poverty, Livelihoods
International Rivers Network
2006-05-04, Issue 253
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/33983
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The government of Mozambique announced last Friday, 21 April, that the Export-Import Bank of China has agreed to back the construction of the proposed Mphanda Nkuwa Dam, worth over US $2 billion. The financial agreement comes at great risk to Mozambique's economy, environment, and people, for the benefit of foreign big business. Justiça Ambiental (JA!), a Mozambique-based organization, is urging its government to suspend all activity on the project until all project studies are completed and published.
Mozambique Mega-Dam will Exacerbate Poverty, Livelihoods
PRESS RELEASE
Friday, April 28, 2006
Anabela Lemos Terri Hathaway
JA! Justiça Ambiental (Mozambique) International Rivers Network (US)
Phone: +258 82 310 601 0 Phone: 510 848 1155
ja_ngo@yahoo.com terri@irn.org
The government of Mozambique announced last Friday, 21 April, that the Export-Import Bank of China has agreed to back the construction of the proposed Mphanda Nkuwa Dam, worth over US $2 billion. The financial agreement comes at great risk to Mozambique’s economy, environment, and people, for the benefit of foreign big business. Justiça Ambiental (JA!), a Mozambique-based organization, is urging its government to suspend all activity on the project until all project studies are completed and published. JA! and other organizations have been monitoring the preparation for Mphanda Nkuwa since 2000.
Also spelled Mepanda Uncua, the proposed dam will have a capacity of 1,350 megawatts. It will be located on one of Africa’s most dammed rivers, the Zambezi, 70 km downstream of Cahora Bassa, a 2,075 megawatt dam. The demand for electricity in Mozambique is only 350 megawatts, excluding its largest electricity consumer, the Mozal aluminum smelter. Mozal consumes three times more electricity than the rest of Mozambique. Communities surrounding Cahora Bassa Dam remain un-electrified, while the dam’s power is sold far below market value to neighboring countries.
JA!Justiça Ambiental raises the following concerns:
Mozambique in the dark: Mphanda Nkuwa is listed as a priority project under the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) in order to increase the electricity supply to the regional grid of southern Africa, primarily for industry. However, less than 5% of Mozambicans have access to electricity, and Mphanda Nkuwa is not expected to change this. Most Mozambicans live in rural areas far from the electricity grid, and expansion of the grid system is prohibitively expensive. While new, energy-intensive and polluting companies are attracted to the region, the poor of Mozambique will continue to sit in the dark.
No transparency: Government officials have withheld vital project documents from public view and lied about the existence of an updated environmental impact assessment, breaching the Mozambican Environmental Law. Efforts to obtain such documents, including petitioning the Mozambican Parliament, have yielded little success.
Lives and livelihoods harmed: Mphanda Nkuwa Dam will displace 1,400 farmers who have been given little information about the project. International resettlement experts cite that dam-affected communities are regularly left more impoverished than before. According to one of the only project draft documents seen, the proposed dam will cause daily fluctuations in the river levels. If uncorrected, these fluctuations will seriously harm the fishing, river navigation, and riverside gardens of downstream communities. These communities have received no information on these impacts and their livelihoods will suffer without any planned compensation.
Seismic safety: A recent 7.5 earthquake and several aftershocks in Mozambique raise questions about the safety of Mphanda Nkuwa Dam, which is sited in a seismically active zone. Due to poor record keeping, the quake was nearly 30 times more powerful than thought possible in the region. Large dams worldwide have experienced seismic activity during the filling of the reservoirs. Based on limited access to project documents, the issue of seismic risk has not been addressed for Mphanda Nkuwa, and project authorities have prematurely dismissed JA!’s concerns. “An earthquake at this dam site could cause a catastrophe. People need to know that this is a risk,” said Anabela Lemos.
Downstream restoration destroyed: The dam will undermine years of restoration work in the Zambezi delta, known as the richest wetland in East Africa and declared a Ramsar site in 2003. Because of decades of degradation caused by Cahora Bassa Dam, a daily flow regime that will support downstream ecology is being designed. But based on the original studies, Mphanda Nkuwa Dam will require Cahora Bassa to operate according to its past destructive release patterns. Furthermore, the proposed Mphanda Nkuwa Dam will block the Luia River, one of the last unregulated catchments and a vital source of sediment, making downstream restoration virtually impossible to achieve.
Chinese financing and human rights complacency: The Export Import Bank of China, also known as China Exim Bank, is supporting an increasing number of projects in Africa, including the Merowe Dam in Sudan, where displaced communities have been met with harsh violence. Concerns brought to the Bank by human rights advocates have gone unanswered. Justiça Ambiental and International Rivers Network are concerned that financing from the Chinese Exim Bank may help bankroll human rights abuses that occur under Mphanda Nkuwa, putting affected people at greater risk and without access to justice. “We do not want the experience of Merowe Dam here in Mozambique,” said Anabela Lemos.
Essential Steps for the Way Forward
JA!’s aim is to ensure that the proposed Mphanda Nkuwa project is in the best interest of all Mozambicans and to determine if the proposed dam is the best option for the country’s development. Therefore, they are urging the government of Mozambique to suspend all activity of the proposed Mphanda Nkuwa Dam until:
· All project studies are completed and published, especially a much needed seismic analysis.
· A thorough assessment of all Mozambique’s energy needs and options as specified in the World Commission on Dams (WCD) is completed and publicly debated. JA! believes that there are better, pro-poor options to Mphanda Nkuwa. An energy needs and options assessment is the first step to ensuring that Mozambicans’ energy needs are met with the least human, environmental, and economic costs.
· An audit of the Cahora Bassa Dam is conducted and its negative effects are mitigated by implementation of environmental flow releases for better management of the river basin.
Anabela Lemos of Justiça Ambiental: “Mphanda Nkuwa Dam is not development. It will be built at the cost of Mozambique’s future and at the risk of the Zambezi people. Big foreign corporations will reap the rewards and the people of the Zambezi will lose the little that they have. Real development should bring light to the people and security to their lives.”
Terri Hathaway of International Rivers Network: “Mphanda Nkuwa will not dig Mozambique out of poverty. The project’s secrecy and lack of concern for local people foretells this project’s future as a failure for the poor.”
For more information, visit: http://www.irn.org/programs/mphanda/ .
Terri Hathaway
International Rivers Network, Africa Program
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94703
tel. +1 510-848-1155, fax +1 510-848-1008
International Rivers Network protects rivers and defends the rights of communities that depend on them. IRN opposes destructive dams and the development model they advance, and encourages better ways of meeting people’s needs for water, energy and protection from destructive floods.