Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
aged school was condemned as unsafe, had to travel several kilometers to Manwan Town-
ship in order to attend school.
Studies such as Guo's that seek to make policy recommendations on resettlement issues,
tend to approach the issue with caution and circumspection. The authors tend not to overtly
criticize central policy or the overall objective of building hydroelectric dams but rather
try to provide a detailed analysis of the outcomes of resettlement, make recommendations,
and advocate for better participation by those most affected by resettlement. In subsequent
chapters, I revisit the issue of whether policy makers have taken these lessons to heart and
how resettlement policy can better address some of the problems outlined here.
CONTEMPORARY LIVELIHOODS ON THE LANCANG
In 2009, I traveled to the middle reaches of the Lancang with a group of American and
Chinese researchers to conduct household surveys in Fengqing County (the site of Xiaow-
an Dam), Yun County (the site of Manwan and Dachaoshan Dams), and Lancang County
(where Nuozhadu Dam was under construction at the time). We headed west from Kun-
ming by bus on an expressway, about 270 kilometers to the town of Midu, then hired a
smaller car to go another hour south to the county town of Nanjian, and then for another
two hours went by local bus to Xiaowan Township, the location of the Xiaowan Dam and
many of the resettlement communities associated with the project.
Near Nanjian, the wide valleys were planted in rice, corn, sweet potatoes, tobacco, and
other crops. The rice stalks, a deep green hue in early summer, were nearing their full
height. As we approached the Xiaowan Dam after a long day of travel, the terrain became
progressively more rugged, and the bus's engine labored as we wound in and out of steep
gorges,theslopesofwhichwereterracedforfarming.Theserpentineriver—brownishgray
and laden with sediment—came into view, disappeared, and reappeared. Along the way,
small-scale industries dotted the landscape: a gypsum quarry, a cement plant, a coal mine.
For the final hour of the ride, the road traced the path of huge power-transmission lines,
buttressed by steel scaffold towers, arcing their way eastward toward the urban manufac-
turing hubs in Guangdong Province.
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The rainy season had begun, and television and radio reports were warning of landslides
inthearea.Throughsheetsofheavyrain,weviewedtheXiaowanDam,mostlycompleteat
that time except for the installation of a few turbines, from a bridge a half-kilometer down-
stream. The massive structure—at 292 meters currently the world's tallest dam—could be
seen through the dense air, wedged into a narrow section of the canyon. Several families
were walking along the roadside on a bluff overlooking the dam, their group framed by
hillside scars and a new access road that had been carved into the mountainside in the dis-
tance. Winding along the road several kilometers upstream from the dam was the reservoir,
