The area is also home to several species of regionally at risk, threatened or endangered birds, turtles, and Irrawaddy river dolphins. Local people eat fish, on average, daily. This area will undergo huge transitions if all the dams are built. Food, water, location of villages, tourism – all will be impacted.

We spent five days on some uninhabited islands in this section of the Mekong with a bird research team. We spoke with the PhD student performing the research, her wildlife photographer, a local survivor of the Khmer Rouge era who tended the camp while the crew was out during the day, and his son who navigated and operated our boat. One of the staff we followed has several ‘first on the Mekong’ sightings of bird species.

Our Cambodian born translator had fled  from at the start of the Khmer Rouge era. His family lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for almost a decade. At 12 he moved to Chicago knowing no English and never having seen life outside the camp. After many harrowing experiences in the US that led to unsurprising complications with the law he was forcibly returned to Cambodia at the age of 30. He had never gained full US citizenship and had no recollection of ever having been in Cambodia.

There are many stories like his in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. And many like those of our boatman who showed us bullet wounds from the brief Cambodian / Khmer Rouge war with Vietnam. Many people are very averse to conflict for a variety of good reasons. One man told us, “When I hear about war in other countries I feel sad because I know what it’s like.” Being restricted by those feelings based in the horrific past of the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam war era, and a relatively controlling government may leave people with few options.

In conversation people tend to be either indifferent to the coming changes due to what they say is a lack of information or vocally opposed. Older people sometimes seem more concerned about the river and fish than they do about electricity. One man shrugged and said he was happy with batteries.

A few we spoke with expressed a desire to be active in their opposition to large scale river development. There is not much space for that. The day we arrived to the Capitol, Phnom Penh, a labor rights protest was disbanded by authorities because it had political leanings.

We do know that Cambodians eat more fish than any other people in the world. This is true if you measure pounds per year, percentage of calories, or percentage of protein in the diet from fish. Seasonal flows from the Mekong back up into the Tonle Sap lake and out again provide much of that abundance. Those flows will likely be affected by main stream and tributary dams.

Phnom Penh is an active, developing city at the confluence of the Tonle Sap river and the Mekong. Numerous International NGO’s and businesses have offices there. We’ve been talking with some of them about options for the river and its people. Watch for details about these people and ecological systems on coming pages. And as always – tell us about your river.

The dam is so close to the Mekong it is an example of likely biological impacts of main stem dams. It was equipped with fish ladders. But fish ladders were invented for salmon in NW rivers of the United States where they work marginally. Many Mekong fish do not use them. Several dozen species disappeared from the Mun when the dam gates closed. After much protest the government agreed to open the dam gates for study. Fish stocks recovered a great deal, but some species did not return. A university study and a Living River Siam study both recommended leaving the gates open. The government agreed to leave them open – but only several months a year. Subsequent international evaluation suggests the dam should never have been built.

As many as 25,000 people were displaced to build the dam and reservoir. Most of them also lost their jobs, their source of income which was tied to river ecology. Some are still fighting. They did receive some compensation after lengthy protest. But they are still deprived of their means to make a living. Several told us they don’t want a manual labor job in Bangkok several hundred miles distant. They want to continue living in their communities, fishing, growing gardens, trading and selling fish, and working for themselves.

How governments and societies choose to manage Commons like rivers and oceans is a worldwide issue. Watch for more pages offering information about these topics and asking questions about your local river.

Several conferences in Vientiane and one in Bangkok confirmed many of the things we were seeing in villages and cities. Laos is complicated to understand and to explain. We will do it steps, through specific examples from travels and interviews.

We met with several NGO’s, consultants and government contractors including representatives of World Wildlife Fund, Fishbio, International Water Management Institute, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and others. We had the opportunity to attend meetings with national (Laos) and international experts, and forums including the Ambassadors of France and Germany.

We heard interesting stories from the founder of Community Learning International. CLI is a small non-profit that operates a library boat and learning centers in northern Laos. The boats reach some villages that previously had no printed words in them. CLI also operates some learning centers, builds schools and has done some media workshops in small towns. For example local youth created a book for tourists talking about their view of their town. He spoke about the changes in Laos over the last 25 years and his thoughts about the future.

Watch for pages about some of those topics in the coming weeks.

A lot has changed. Vientiane now has a brisk tourist trade. Britain recently re-established an embassy in the city. Many international non-profits, aid agencies and research organizations have offices there. And it is the home to the Mekong River Commission. Watch for a page talking about the MRC, its role in monitoring and advising, and its responsibility to attempt to mediate between countries of the lower Mekong basin.

Conferences, meetings and forums about first management, water resources, rural development and other topics happen somewhere in the city daily. The Lao government employs or accepts on loan a range of international researchers and consultants. So it is easy to find meetings either in English or translated via wireless headset.

Despite the growing bustle and modernization Vientiane has a bit of wild west energy. Things feel a bit lawless just under the surface. It’s not uncommon to be asked by traffic police for five dollars now to avoid having to go to the office to pay a ticket. Things are changing rapidly. Mercedes park alongside tuk-tuks. Fortunes are made in a matter of months while buildings sit empty in the core of the city.

In addition to perching along the Mekong it is also a border town with a nearby crossing to Thailand, an international airport, and water route between Burma and Cambodia. We met a French man in Vientiane who was swimming the entire Mekong – from China to the delta in Vietnam. Watch for a page on that as well.

Laos is changing rapidly. Small communities that only five or ten years ago barely registered on the tourist circuit now have menus printed in English and Chinese. The forest clinging to impossibly steep mountainsides and the rice fields of the river valleys are turning to rubber, teak, watermelon, corn and other export crops. People’s attitudes are changing as well.

City dwellers always have an eye for business. But even five years ago it was possible in Laos to have to wake up a tuk-tuk driver to get him to take you somewhere. It’s a cliche. And it happened. Now they sometimes ask double or quadruple the already higher foreigner rate. Some rural people in touristed areas, though they have more spending money, do not seem as happy. One villager said, “Lao people used to all come together like a family. Now there is competition.”

Several local boys about nine or ten years old from the same town got to play with our camera. They were thrilled to film each other. We all watched their work together on the tiny screen. We laughed. We laughed a lot. Ten year olds haven’t changed. They picked up how to use the camera with no instruction. They just watched once how it was done. We can visit this community again and create videos about their river to share with US students. Several locals including two teachers think it is a good idea.

US and Canadian students can step up to the challenge.

More comments from local people about cultural and development changes will be coming soon on new pages.

We have met three PhD’s and a Masters degree holder from four countries working in biology (echolocation in bats and dolphins), forestry/restoration/endangered species management, ecological engineering and full lifecycle assessment, and anthropology of river cultures. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow The One River Project will be presented to some sustainability students at Mae Fah Luang University in Chiang Rai. The PhD teaching the class will be helping us a bit with some research and outreach. We will post an interview with him soon.

Tonight we speak with an American PhD student here in Chiang Mai. She is an anthropologist studying impacts of dams on people and culture in Thailand. She will add some great perspective from time to time. We hope to form a long term connection and follow her research.

Greater Portland area, Oregon class is working on some student submissions. So is east end of The Gorge. Living River Siam Association in Thailand is interested in sharing Thai student work. They are not ready to do so at this time. And we must organize translation. We think this is a realistic goal for next year…

Perhaps we can inspire Thai students with some North American student submissions. If US and Canadian students are curious about  megafishes and elephants imagine how curious small town Thai students must be about salmon, Columbia white sturgeon, elk, and Columbia Basin history with grizzly bears, moose, logging, cowboys and cattle.

You don’t have to imagine. Driving to a rural site this week we passed a resort called ‘The Log Of Paradis’. It is a wild west themed hotel and lodge – and log home building business. Plywood cutouts of cowboys, signs directing ‘water your horse here’ or ‘buffalo crossing’, and a restaurant serving Texas steak and pad thai sit between a busy two-lane highway and some rice fields. This type of west / wild west nostalgia is common. It reminds us that assumptions and imaginings of other places may be stereotypical and outdated. It is a good reminder to watch and listen.

We are still working on completing local content from the Mekong River. Chiang Khong will have a page under Cities (Mekong pages). We have a video interview with Living Rivers Siam director. We tagged along on site visits with visiting university groups last week and have video from a few communities on the Mekong or nearby tributaries. And we have some short video from a local project of the Chiang Khong Conservation group. We attended a meeting of rice and water buffalo farmers where they discussed land rights and how they could work together as a group to maintain theirs. All those are pending.

This week we also have active interest from schools in the Columbia River basin. We’ve forwarded the rumors that some Thai teen conservation groups might be interested in sharing video and are curious about salmon. We will follow up on that lead as American teens begin to prepare their first submissions to The One River Project web site.

We are very busy.

Pak Mun dam is on major tributary to the Mekong near the confluence of the two rivers. The impact of the dam on people and river ecology, and the politics and economics around its construction and operation appear to offer a look at  the likely course of events on main stem Mekong.

The Director of Living River Siam also told us that their teen groups would be interested in hearing about American rivers and salmon – an exotic and almost mythological species they have only heard about. We will be asking students for submissions about salmon.

He also suggested that we might work towards sharing short videos about our rivers on YouTube or other platforms like Facebook. At The One River Project we have been talking about this for over a year. We will pursue this with LRSA and other organizations we encounter.

Yesterday we met a PhD student from the US who is living and working in Thailand studying dams and effects. We expect some collaboration with her in the future. Thai dams offer insight into Mekong main stem dams. And often the involved bank(s), construction company and electric utility are the same.

Things are getting interesting. We have reorganized the site a bit. All prior information is still there. And we will be adding more in the coming days. We expect to depart again for the north on Monday. Keep checking the site for updates.

The visit to the Mekong was informative. Things have changed in Chiang Khong. Lao PDR is on the opposite shore of the river. Most local people share Lao heritage, customs and language. A new bridge between Thailand and Laos opened in December just downstream from Chiang Khong. Locals say it was built with Chinese and Thai money. They say at the dedication there was a Chinese flag and a Thai flag, but no Lao flag. Locals told stories of a history of friction with Chinese influence on the river and in Lao PDR. Watch for details in new pages to be posted soon.

Both Thai and foreign tourism crossing to Laos has moved outside the old part of town. This has affected local businesses. Waves of outside and Chinese investment are changing local politics and economics. Some locals are frustrated and worried about their city and their livelihoods.

The river is big and powerful though cobbled by upstream dams in China. Traditional fishing long ago gave way to nylon nets, plastic bottle floats, and stunning fish with dynamite or electroshock with car batteries. Fish garner a higher price at the market but are far fewer – even the smaller ones used by locals for food.

Local organizations are working hard on a variety of issues. Some relate to the river and tributaries. On the table of the Chiang Khong Conservation Group are local land and water rights, sustainable farming, defending communal agricultural lands against big company incursions, establishing voluntary fish conservation zones, and developing tourism with a carful eye to preserving food security, local culture and community unity and independence.

The Xayaburi dam is considered a done deal by many. They are already planning how to document and minimize the impact. They do not sound optimistic. The next likely dam could be at Pak Beng in Lao PDR. Pak Beng is just a few dozen kilometers downstream from Chiang Khong and half way to the UNESCO World Heritage city of Luang Prabang. The reservoir would likely stretch upstream almost to the last Thai village on the Mekong side. Downstream from that village the river enters Laos completely for its next 250 miles.

We got to ride along on a couple of foreign (US university students) education exchange tours. And we visited a site where local farmers are negotiating with the government, an international conservation area, and outside companies over land rights.

The trip to Laos has been delayed. Our collaborator and translator was invited to participate in a leadership program spanning 2 years. The first meeting is in Bangkok this week. So we returned to Chiang Mai to follow up on interviews with non-profits, film makers, and professors. We expect to make a trip into Laos next week and travel for a few days along the mekong and tributaries.

Approximately 10 new short videos, several new pages, and many requests for submissions will be up by the end of the weekend. We look forward to receiving student submissions.