The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Thursday called for an official inspection of the Xayaburi dam site on the Mekong River in Laos amid reports that a Thai construction firm is proceeding with the project despite demands for its indefinite delay, according to dpa. In December, the ministerial-level meeting of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), comprising the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, agreed to delay the Xayaburi dam project pending further environmental impact studies. But on April 17, Thailand's Ch Karnchang PCL construction company announced it had signed a 52-billion-baht (1.7-billion-dollar) contract to build the hydropower dam, with construction scheduled to start in March. "The Mekong River Commission should appoint a group of representatives from its council to visit the proposed dam site to monitor and respond to the situation," said Marc Goichot, WWF's manager for sustainable hydropower in the Greater Mekong. "We also urge Laos to inform the other members of the MRC about the accuracy of the recent statement by the developer and to clarify whether the December agreement by the MRC has been breached," Goichot said. The Xayaburi dam is the first of several proposed hydropower projects on the lower Mekong River, South-East Asia's longest waterway, which flows from southern China through parts of Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Environmentalists have warned the dam could adversely affect the livelihoods of 2 million people dependent on the river for fishing and agriculture. The dam would disrupt fish migrations and the flow of fertile sediment, they say.
