The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation yesterday voiced concern over China’s plans to build 13 large hydroelectric dams on the Salween river, according to the Shan state’s independent news agency.
The Shan Herald Agency for News cited a recent letter written by Francesco Bandarin, director of Unesco’s World Heritage Centre. In the letter he affirmed the US-based International Rivers Network’s contention that nine of China’s proposed 13 dams are in the country’s “Three Parallel Rivers” area, which has been listed as a World Heritage site since July 2003. “We will certainly express our concern to the Chinese authorities regarding this project,” Bandarin wrote in the letter, according to The Shan Herald.
Copies of the letter were sent to the Chinese National Commission for Unesco, the Chinese Permanent Delegation to Unesco, and Zhang Xinshang, chairman of the World Heritage Committee, among others, the news agency reported.
The Chinese government plans to build all the hydro power dams on the upper part of the river in Yunnan. The Salween river, known in China as Nujiang, originates in the Tibetan plateau. It flows through an area of 320,000 square kilometres in China, Burma and Thailand, before draining into the Andaman Sea.
