Mountains of Concrete - summary

decision-making process let alone being on the same footing as financial and economic ones.

Against this background, climate change looms as a huge threat that is set to overturn the fundamental assumptions, especially river flows, on which these projects are planned. The impacts of climate change are likely to lead initially to high flows and extreme events – raising concerns of dam safety – and are later likely to result in sharp drops in flows – raising questions about dam performance. The frequency of catastrophic events like GLOFs is also likely to increase; further increasing risks to dam safety.

Sedimentation, already a bane for dams in the Himalayas, is also set to intensify. The big dam planners seem to have adopted an ostrich-like attitude to the impacts of climate change on the Himalayan region.

Pushing ahead such a massive dam-building program in the fragile Himalayan region without proper social and environmental assessments and safeguards, and ignoring the likely impacts of climate change, can have severe consequences. The recent devastation caused by the breach in the embankments of the Kosi River in Nepal and the subsequent change of course that wreaked havoc with the lives of millions of people is an indication of what lies in store if we undertake far-reaching interventions in sensitive regions of the Himalayas without fully evaluating the possible consequences.

All of these things point to the need for a comprehensive review of the dam building program in each of the river basins in the Himalayas. They call for evolving an alternative approach to meeting the pressing energy and water needs in a manner that is just and sustainable. The recommendations of the World Commission on Dams offer the best possible framework for this. The choices are not easy, and the process will be difficult. The decisions lie with the people in the respective countries. Yet, just as these countries claim the right to make their own decisions, they will have to grant the same right to local people, those who will be most affected, to have a meaningful say in these decision-making processes.

And even as the interests of the local people need to be given a priority along with national interests, the people of this region should remember that they are the custodians of a treasure that is the common heritage of the entire world – the Himalayas.

International Treaties Few EIAs have been carried out prior to large dam construction. Even if individual projects do have an EIA the whole drainage basin has not been dealt with as a whole, as seen in coastal Shoreline Management Plans. India and Pakistan negotiated and signed the Indus Water Treaty in 1960 and have successfully implemented the sharing of the Indus Basin river waters since then. There is deep resentment amongst many Nepali people with the rulers in New Delhi that stems from the feeling that many of the bilateral water-sharing agreements have favored India.

The Berlin Rules on Water Resources (August 21, 2004) is a document adopted by the International Law Association to summarize international law customarily to freshwater resources, whether within a nation or crossing international boundaries. The document supersedes the earlier Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers, which was limited to international drainage basins and aquifers.