| March 1999Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji recently discussed some changes that will be made to the Three Gorges Dam
project, an old Chinese project that is only now being put into action."If we insist on relocating people in neighboring areas, it will be inevitable that land will be reclaimed from steep slopes, vegetation will be damaged, new soil erosion will occur, the ecological environment will be damaged, and untold troubles will entail," said Zhu. As a result, Zhu said that the plan for relocating both people and enterprises should be altered. He said that the government should "readjust and improve" its plans to move over a million people.Meanwhile, one of the most important critics of the dam in China, Dai Qing, was working as a visiting scholar in the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Dai Qing says that the Three Gorges Dam project will "greatly upset the
environmental balance of the world." As a result, environmentalists from around the world are now opposing the project, and she thinks there is a good chance that they will be successful. She says that the project could be forced to terminate in the near future because of inadequate funding. If completed, the Three Gorges Dam will produce 84 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power
each year, enough energy for most of central and eastern China.Hear environmentalists talk about Three Gorges Dam
Background information on the dam |
