THE NU RIVER - Dams and Development in China - page 79

the gorge. But the rise in population over the past several hundred years, compounded by
the market-based agricultural reforms of the past several decades and recent government
policies severely restricting forest burning, induced them to practice sedentary agriculture.
Most households now grow a variety of grain crops, including rice, corn, barley, and buck-
wheat, as well as a wide array of vegetable crops in small household garden plots. Agri-
cultural fields are carved out of incredibly steep hillsides or situated on alluvial fans where
tributaries to the Nu River have deposited rich, fertile sediment. Maintaining this cultiva-
tion pattern requires a tremendous amount of effort, which the anthropologist Marco Clark
hasreferredtoasa“delicatebalancebetweengravityandhumandetermination” (2009:23).
Fishing is a common pursuit, often using a dip-netting technique peculiar to the Nu River
area, involving two bamboo poles with a net suspended between (J. Goodman 2012:18).
Hard work is required even for the most prosaic of tasks. Outside the county towns of
Lushui, Fugong, and Gongshan, few bridges span the Nu River Gorge, and most villagers
cross the river by zipline cables or suspended footbridges to transport their crops or live-
stocktomarket. Itisnotuncommontoseesheeporcattle nervouslythrashing aboutasthey
ride a zipline from one river bank to the other. 5 Reaching the remotest villages, which are
located high in the mountains and are not visible from the gorge, requires more than a day's
hike from any road.
DAMMING THE NU RIVER: UNCERTAINTY IN THE FACE OF
DISPLACEMENT
In 2002, when the State Electric Power Corporation was disbanded and its assets distrib-
uted among various corporations, giving the Five Energy Giants responsibility for power
generation, China Huadian Group was granted a monopoly on the right to develop dam
projects on the Nu River. 6 Through its subsidiary, Yunnan Huadian Nujiang Hydropower
Development Company, China Huadian Corporation enjoys close ties to the provincial
government in Yunnan and exerts considerable influence over water-resource development
in the region (Magee and McDonald 2009).
Current plans call for a thirteen-dam cascade on the Nu. Information on each of the thir-
teen dams is provided in table 4.1 , from Songta Dam in the north, which is located in the
Tibet Autonomous Region, to Guangpo Dam in the south, near the border with Myanmar.
Design and operation specifications differ considerably from one dam to the next. Some
dams, such as the Songta and Maji, are to be very large (more than 300 meters high) and
will include reservoirs with enormous storage capacities, displacing thousands of people;
others, such as the Bingzhongluo and Liuku, have been designed as run-of-the-river dams
with minimal storage capacity and will thus displace far fewer people. The hydropower
potential of the total cascade is estimated at 21,000 megawatts, larger than the total capa-