More From Our Geographers

Read more from our interview with Dr. Coleen Fox about the idea of "placeless power," and the effect of privatized dam building on ecosystems and indigenous peoples in Laos.

When I was in Laos, I tried to contact some of the consortium that was responsible for doing some dam-building. It was almost impossible to locate them physically. They didn't have an office, it was -- it was inaccessible in Vientiane… And this sort of placeless power I thought really described the way that some of these companies come together

There's one company that's a consortium that's building -- working on the Nam Thuen 2 Dam…they're investors from Thailand, from Italy, from France. And even in their home countries, the people in the home countries are not really aware of their involvement in dam-building. And the reason that's important is because dam-building is a ten billion dollar a year business globally... And in European countries, United States, as well as in Thailand, it's no longer politically feasible to build large dams. But, so, Laos is a landscape where this international dam-building can still continue.

… [A]s of I think it was 1995, Thailand decided that no more large dams would be built in that country. In part because there was too much resistance. Every time a dam was proposed, there was -- there were protests and people had enough political freedom to say this is not really -- the benefits don't seem to be outweighing the cost of some of these projects. So, easy for the Thai government, because there's so much hydropotential in Laos and that's where Thailand has looked for its, that's where Thailand's looking for its energy in the future. So I think there are many, many other issues related to hydrodevelopment but critics would say that there's -- the involvement of private companies in some ways, just amplifies many of those problems. There's a lot of money to be made in dam-building.

Geographer Fox also discusses the effect of dams on the fish in the Mekong River and its tributaries.

…[T]he people of Laos primarily get their protein from fish. Fisheries are incredibly important nutritionally in Laos. They also tend to have been some kind of a backup if there is some sort of crop failure or other way in which the food supply is distressed. Fish are there for people and the dams will very seriously impact fisheries.

…[M]any of the fish in the Mekong River basin are migratory. And they don't just migrate up the main stem, but into the tributaries or into the flooded wetland and the flood plains all throughout the basin. So, fisheries are a big concern in terms of how the dams will not only block migrations but also alter flow patterns. So an example I think that really illustrates this well is that the Mekong is basically a flood pulse river. It has floods with the monsoon annually. From June to October is its high season, and it's actually, historically, a gently flooding river, so it doesn't have this flashy flood profile. And so the landscape is inundated and fish migrate.

When there are floods, it sort of sets in motion the spawning migration. And fish are, aquatic fish are fairly, "adapted to that regime." And if you have a dam, say for example in Laos, that's providing energy to, say Bangkok or another city in Thailand, the releases from a dam might not, well, they won't follow that sort of annual cycle but they may peak at, say, five in the afternoon, or, you know, peak on a daily or hourly basis. So, there's some concern…a lot of concern for the way that releases from dams will alter, alter the flow.