Thẻ: Mekong River Commission

International Waters Governance – Mekong

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Mekong

Legal Basis:

The Mekong River Commission (“MRC”) governs the allocation and utilization of the Mekong River waters by four countries – Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The MRC was founded in 1995 pursuant to the Agreement on the Cooperation for Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin (the “1995 Agreement”), which was signed and entered into force at Chiang Rai, Thailand on 5 April 1995. On 5 April 2010, the heads of state of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos met in Hua Hin, Thailand for the first MRC Summit to mark the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the 1995 Agreement. The parties adopted a joint declaration—the Hua Hin Declaration—reaffirming their commitment to implementing the 1995 Agreement. The 1995 Agreement was the result of more than 40 years of regional and supra-regional efforts to manage the resources of the Mekong River Delta. In the mid-1950s, the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (“ECAFE”) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation sent teams to the Mekong to examine water management issues. Both ECAFE and the U.S. Government published detailed reports of their findings. Tiếp tục đọc “International Waters Governance – Mekong” →

Requiem for a river: Can one of the world’s great waterways survive its development?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

economist – GUO, the driver, pulls his car to a merciful halt high above a crevasse: time for a cigarette, and after seven hours of shuddering along narrow, twisting roads, time for his passengers to check that their fillings remain in place. Lighting up, he steps out of the car and dons a cloth cap and jacket: sunny, early-summer days are still brisk 3,500 metres above sea level. Mr Guo is an impish little dumpling of a man, bald, brown-toothed and jolly. He is also an anomaly: a Shanghainese in northern Yunnan who opted to stay with his local bride rather than return to his booming hometown.

The ribbon of brown water cutting swiftly through the gorge below is rich with snowmelt. With few cars passing, its echoing sound fills the air. In the distance, the Hengduan mountains slump under their snowpack as if crumpled beneath its weight. Mr Guo recalls the drivers who have taken a switchback too quickly and fallen to their deaths in the valley below. He tells of workers who lost their footing or whose harnesses failed while building a bridge near his home town of Cizhong, 20 or 30 kilometres south. He pulls hard on his cigarette. “This river”, he says, “has taken so many lives.”

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