China will build the world’s largest dam on the sacred Tibetan River Environmental news

At the foot of the Himalayas, where the ancient Yarlung civilization founded the first Tibetan Empire, China plans to build the world’s largest hydroelectric dam.

In November last year, China state media shared plans for a 60-gigawatt meg-dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Now with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, Beijing has redoubled its efforts on its Tibet hydropower projects, although the dams have drawn criticism from Tibetan rights groups and environmentalists.

Tenzin Dolmey has never stepped on the Tibetan plateau, but she was raised with the stories of the great rivers and mountains that make up her ancestral home.

Respect for nature is so ingrained, said Dolmey, who grew up among Tibetan migrants in India and now learns the Tibetan language and culture in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city.

When we were going to swim in rivers, we were told to never use it as a bath because there are river gods in the water.

Yarlung Tsangpo has a special significance, as it represents the body of the goddess Dorje Phagmo, one of the highest incarnations in Tibetan culture.

Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha, head of Environment and Development at the Tibetan Policy Institute, says this reverence for the natural world originated from the unique Tibetan Plateau landscape and dates back centuries.

China took control of Tibet in 1950 and has invested billions in the development of highways, railways and other infrastructure. Tibetans worry about the effect of such projects on their unique landscape and way of life [File: Roman Pilipey/EPA]

But since China, controlled by the Communist Party (CCP), annexed Tibet in 1950, Zamlha says Tibetans have lost all words about what is happening on their land.

“We had absolutely no dam before the Chinese occupation, not because we were unable to exploit it, but because we had tremendous respect for the nature of the rivers,” he told Al Jazeera.

There is a very strict tradition that no one should go near certain streams or do anything that would bother him. You do not even need laws that every Tibetan adheres to.

The Chinese will do everything to take advantage of their growth and this is very disappointing because Tibetans are not advised.

The highest river in the world

From its origin in the glaciers of western Tibet, the Yarlung Tsangpo reaches an altitude of nearly 5,000 meters (16,404 meters) above sea level, making it the highest river in the world as it winds its way through the Himalayan range.

The river dives 2,700 meters (8,858 meters) through what is known as the Grand Canyon Yarlung Tsangpo, forming a gorge more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States.

The rapid fall makes it particularly conducive to hydropower collection, but experts have warned that the record-breaking dam is likely to have political and environmental consequences.

According to Chinas Power Construction Corp chairman Yan Zhiyong, mega-dams were built primarily to supply Chinas green future.

While China already has a surplus of energy, Brian Eyler, a river expert who is the director of the Southeast Asia Program at Stimson Center, says the energy generated will probably be used to cover losses as it makes the transition from fossil fuels to purify energy.

The mega-dam could generate three times the hydroelectric power of China’s largest current dam, the Three Gorges, a project that forced the relocation of more than 1.4 million people.

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in central China is currently the largest dam in the world. The dam at Yarlung Tsangpo would be even bigger [File: Wang Gang/Xinhua via AP Photo]

The areas around Yarlung Tsangpo are less populated than the Yangtze River.

But there is a precedent for relocating locals to pave the way for dam projects in Yarlung Tsangpo, with local media reporting that nearly 2,000 people were relocated for the construction of the Yagen Hydropower Plant in 2015.

According to the state-backed Global Times, the Yarlung Tsangpo dam will be built in Medog County, which has a population of 14,000 people.

Al Jazeera contacted China Power Construction Corp. to comment on the number of people affected by the Yarlung Tsangpo dam but received no response.

Geopolitical importance

Spread over 2.5 million square kilometers (8.2 million square miles), the Tibetan Plateau is rich in natural resources and borders several other nations.

The freshwater flow, which comes from melting glaciers and mountain springs, flows through the Himalayan watershed and provides drinking water to about 1.8 billion people in countries including China, India and Bhutan.

Zamlha believes Tibetan springs like the Yarlung Tsangpo and Mekong rivers were a key factor in the CCP’s decision to take control of Tibet more than 70 years ago.

These geopolitical factors were brought into sharp focus last year following a dispute in the western Himalayas between India and China in which 20 Indian troops and an unknown number of Chinese were killed. It turned out last month that the soldiers had quarreled again along their common border.

After leaving China, the Yarlung Tsangpo flows into Bangladesh and the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, where the river is called the Brahmaputra.

With the proposed mega-dam located just 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Indian border, Zamlha believes the CCP will definitely try to use it as a political tool.

An Indian ministry spokesman in charge of managing its water resources said it would respond with a 10 gigawatt project at another branch of Brahmaputra.

Yarlung Zangbo flows into India known as Brahmaputra and supports thousands of fishing communities along its shores [File: Anupam Nath/AP Photo]

Sensing the potential for conflict, the United States has sought to push both sides into sharing resources.

The Tibetan Policy and Support Act, recently signed by Congress, outlined a commitment to: encourage a regional framework on water security to facilitate cooperation agreements between all coastal nations on the Tibetan Plateau.

Similarly, the International Convention on Water Courses, adopted by the United Nations in 1997, enforces some rights and obligations regarding transboundary flows, although neither Bangladesh, India nor China are signatories.

China has tried to calm these concerns. In a statement in December, Hua Chunying, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said China would continue to maintain communication with India and Bangladesh through existing channels. There is no need for the outside world to interpret it too much.

Lessons from the Mekong

While the project at the Grand Canyon Yarlung Tsangpo will certainly be the largest, it is not the only dam project along the river.

Several small and medium-sized dams have already been built, according to Stimson Centers Eyler.

An authority on the Mekong River, he is concerned that Yarlung Tsangpo could pave the way for the display of similar projects.

Analysis of recent data on Chinese dams has revealed that these operations have brought deeper and deeper outages to communities downstream of the once-mighty Mekong River, he said.

He notes that zero coordination for dam operation has allowed Chinas 11 Mekong dams to disrupt fish life and flow sediment and has directly contributed to the collapse of river banks and the destruction of communities.

While the specifics of China’s development plans for Yarlung Tsangpo remain unclear, Eyler says there are major risks.

Rivers are known to be hungry, Eyler said.

So you pull out that sediment and the hungry river starts looking for new things, and will pull it off the shores and cause the deltas to erode. It is a natural process caused by something unnatural.

Damaging the Grand Canyon Yarlung Tsangpos, another source of Tibetan identity will be changed forever.

Tenzin Dolmey holds out hope that one day she will see Tibet herself. But after living 34 years away from her hometown, life as a Tibetan in exile has taught Dolmey to limit her expectations.

I always had this vision of the beautiful capital of Lhasa, she said.

But I know it will be like nothing close to my dreams.