Sponsors: The UHM Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the East-West Center

Description:

An increasing number of dams have been built and proposed in Cambodia over the last decade to feed the increasing demand for energy that accompanies growing urbanization. However, the costs and benefits of damming Cambodia’s rivers are inequitable distributed as, as many of these dams were built in rural areas and forests, which are home to diverse ethnic minorities. This talk discusses the Lower Sesan 2 Dam, Cambodia’s biggest hydropower dam that is built on an ecologically significant Mekong River tributary system, and its impacts on the land and resource access of different ethnic groups. In the dam-affected areas, the abrupt hydrological changes caused by the dam have escalated land struggles among various ethnic groups, intensifying land grabs and the sociopolitical marginalization of those with limited access to land and resources. This talk also considers how the immediate and cumulative impacts of hydropower dams across the Mekong River have intensified long-term land and resource struggles in Cambodia.

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