Hydropower impacts: From Environmental, Social and Gender Perspectives

Impact 4: A more difficult economic stage Although having been resettled and compensated, the people have no production land or no money to invest in production, leading to an increase in the rate of poor households and a rise of unemployment rate.

"The people here have a low level of education and lack essential skills to manage their expenditures, therefore they have not utilized the compensation money effectively. The poverty rate increases compared to that of before the hydropower. Only the Kinh village that has made a quick economic recovery. Other villages that have limited access to science and technology are recovering slowly and then suffering from poverty�.

In Tan Phu village, people have to start everything from the beginning: On average, each household hold VND 100 million of debt. The compensation amount is too low (while people in Dak Nong receive a compensation rate of VND 9,000/m2, people in Ea Nuol only get VND 3,000 - 4,000/m2), plus the fact that compensation had been done for several years (2006-2009) before land was allocated to households, therefore most of the villagers would have spent all compensation before getting the land. After that, they have to spend one more year on reclaiming the land and three more years on planting crops before they can do any harvest (i.e. coffee).

All the three studied sites have a common impact that household income is reduced due to reduced land area, pollution of rivers, difficulties in cultivation and husbandry while expenditures are increased since the people have to invest more in well digging, purchase of drinking water and food instead of self-supply as before. For example, there is no cultivated vegetables or reduced quantity of fish catch, medicinal plants, vegetables (such as shrimps, sesame buds) collected on the side of the rivers and streams (even in the current resettlement area, the exchange of goods is more convenient due to more convenient transportation conditions). The households in Tan Phu village have calculated that their family expenditures are 2-3 times higher than those in their previous living area (VND 5 million/month compared to VND 2 million/month).

The landscapes have changed, making a downfall in the number of tourists and incomes of companies, local people in general and households doing tourism services. Beyond the household level, the economy of the commune has also been affected, reversing the development trend: "The soil of the resettled land is very poor. Working as hired laborers may even bring more income than planting crops on this land. 80% of the land is of poor quality. In the Program 725, roughly 95