THE NU RIVER - Dams and Development in China - page 91

planning by China Huadian (in Yunnan), Datang Corporation (in the Tibet Autonomous
Region), and central and provincial government authorities.
There has been little active resistance on the part of local villagers in the Nu River
basin in the face of these megaprojects that threaten their livelihoods. Such reticence is
due largely to the lack of information about how projects are proceeding, weak capacity to
mount a campaign in the face of economic and cultural marginalization, and the high polit-
ical risks involved in any opposition strategy. 10 However, as we will see in later chapters,
the Nu River has become a focal point for domestic and international NGOs, which see its
damming as an unacceptable cost of economic progress. In response to the State Council's
announcement in 2013 that placed the Nu River projects at center stage and appeared to
signal a clearing away of the last political obstacles in the path of hydropower development
on the Nu, International Rivers circulated a press release that called on Chinese officials to
uphold the moratorium on the Nu projects, urging UNESCO to “remind China of its ob-
ligation to protect the Three Parallel Rivers Area under the World Heritage Convention”
(2013a). Several domestic NGOs—including Green Earth Volunteers and Green Water-
shed—have initiated public-education campaigns that highlight the environmental and so-
cial costs of the projects. After more than a decade of planning and controversy, the Nu
River dams remain a focal point of environmental, social, and political conflict, even as
construction moves inexorably forward.