VietNamNet
Bridge – Local newspapers have recently written many articles about the Dong
Nai 6 and 6A hydro-power projects, invested by the Duc Long Gia Lai Group.
Readers comment that some newspapers protested the construction of hydro-power
plants inside the Cat Tien National Park, and some others supported. What is
the truth?
For
the people’s interest or investor’s interest?
That is the question raised by Lam Dinh Uy, an
expert on environmental sciences from the Center for Biodiversity and
Development, about the two hydro-power projects that are located in the Cat
Tien National Park, which is based in Dong Nai, Lam Dong, Binh Phuoc and Dak
Nong provinces.
According to Mr. Uy, it is extremely important
to make a survey over the households that will be influenced by the
projects--because their social, economic, cultural lives will be directly and
seriously affected.
Notably, most of affected families are Chau Ma
ethnic minority people. The change of living environment of ethnic minority
people means “killing” their cultural traits. “The investor made surveys with
29 families but after carefully considering these questionnaires, I have found
out many matters,” Uy said.
“When they carried out surveys in formalism,
community interests will be ignored and if something happens, that community
will be hit, not the investor,” Uy added.
Both sets of appendix of the reports on
environmental impacts of the Dong Nai 6 and 6A hydro-power projects include the
same 29 questionnaires. It proves that the investor did not conduct serious
surveys over the community that will be affected by their projects.
Of the 29 questionnaires, some were verified
by the local government and some did not have (or invalid). Some of them do not
note the day of survey and some even have wrong addresses of the interviewees.
Many scientists question why contents on resettlement,
site clearance and land compensation, which have no connection to the projects,
appeared in the questionnaires. They doubt that these contents were copied from
other projects. “It is irresponsible that many questionnaires have no value of
reference,” Uy said.
Another matter is riverbank fields of Chau Ma
and M’Nong ethnic minority people will be devoted to the hydro-power projects,
so they will have to destroy forest to till the field. This will be a great
pressure on preservation of virgin forest.
The resources of fish that locals net manually
from the Dong Nai River will be also seriously affected because fish will be
unable to swim upriver for reproduction.
Many scientific works have proven that
hydro-power plants that are already built on the Dong Nai River have caused the
sharp reduction of the quantity and quality of fish. Some species have
disappeared. The lives of Chau Ma and M’Nong people will get worse.
Many risks
In front of many journalists and scientists, a
representative of the Duc Long Gia Lai Group confirmed: “Once they read our
final reports on environmental impacts, anyone who is talented, has far vision
and keen to the country’s development will warmly support our projects!”
Other officials of Duc Long Gia Lai group also
said that the reports on environmental impacts compiled by the Irrigation
Planning Institute for the Southern Region is incomplete, so they are
misunderstood as copied ones. They said the final reports must have the
signature of Mr. Nguyen Dinh Trac, the group’s general director.
The author of this article compared the two
final reports on environmental impacts of the Dong Nai 6 and 6A hydro-power
projects and detected that the report for the Dong Nai 6 project was noted as
6A project. The contents of the both reports are similar and did not have the
separation of researched areas.
It proves that the final reports were still
copied of each other because the research of environmental impacts of two
projects, which are located at different locations, must be different.
Vu Ngoc Long, vice head of the Institute for
Tropical Biology, said that he had carefully researched of the final reports,
which have the signature of Duc Long Gia Lai Group’s general director and
discovered many problems.
Many documents included in the two reports are
similar. Long doubted that the investor used them as a trick to make the
reports thicker. If the investor explains that it is the fault made by the one
who make photocopies of the reports, how can they explain about the different
handwritings, numbers and signatures in these similar documents?
Some documents do not have numbers, dates of
issuance. They only have the signatures and name of the officials who signed
them.
There are both legal and scientific aspects
associated with documents related to these projects. If the two projects, which
are criticized by scientists for their risks, are approved, they would be
disasterous for the Cat Tien National Park in particular and the environmental
in general.
In their first reports, the investor confirms
to organize a dialogue with locals, at the witness of the local authorities and
the dialogue minutes would be added to the final report. However, the final
report did not have the minutes.
The fate of 370 hectares of the Cat Tien
National Park and the surrounding area and the destiny of many Chau Ma and
M’Nong ethnic families are hanging until the National Assembly makes the final
decision.
The Duc Long Gia Lai Group is seeking the
permission to build Dong Nai 6 and Dong Nai 6A hydropower plants. If the two
projects are approved, the two power plants will be built on the total area of
375 hectares, including 135 hectares of the Cat Tien National Park, which was
recognized by the UNESCO as a world’s biosphere reserve in 2001, and 144ha
hectares of the Nam Cat Tien protective forest.
In a document sent to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung reporting about the
two projects, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Hua Duc
Nhi, wrote that relevant ministries and branches all have supported the two
projects.
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai in September 2009, agreed in
principle on adding these two projects to the government’s list of national
power projects in between 2006-2015 and vision to 2025.
The Dong Nai 6A project has the designed capacity of 135MW, with the left
bank belonging to Cat Tien District of Lam Dong province and the right bank
belonging to Dak Rlap district of Dak Nong province, which covers the forest
land area of nearly 200 hectares.
The Dong Nai 6A has the designed capacity of 106MW, covers and forest
land area of 175 hectares.
According to Deputy Minister Nhi, Dong Nai 6 and Dong Nai 6A projects
would affect the forest resources and biodiversity of the Cat Tien National
Park and Nam Cat Tien preventive forest, but it will have little direct effects
to the regional rhino conservation area and the Bau Sau area, because the power
plants are 7-11 kilometers far from the two areas.
However, under the National Assembly’s Resolution 66 dated June 29, 2006,
the transformation of any 50 hectares of national or special forests into other
non-forest purposes must be considered and approved by the National Assembly.
Also, construction of the projects would violate the 2008 Law on
Biological Diversity, according to the Cat Tien National Park’s director Tran
Van Thanh.
In August, 2010, during her talks with Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien
Nhan, Katherine Muller Marin, who is chief representative of UNESCO Office in
Hanoi, said the organization would support Vietnam in processing procedures for
the park to be recognized as a world natural heritage.
Home to 1,600 species of flora, the park, based in Dong Nai, Lam Dong,
Binh Phuoc and Dak Nong provinces, has 105 listed mammal species, 351 species
of birds, over 120 reptile and amphibian species and over 130 species of
freshwater fish.
My Quoc An
(To be continued...)
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