Day of Action for Rivers 2012 Internship

Dear all,

Please note the available internship and forward to anyone you think may be interested:

Day of Action for Rivers Internship 2012

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/jobs

International Day of Action for Rivers - March 14, 2012

International Rivers is looking for an intelligent, inspired and motivated multi-tasker to help organize the 15th Annual International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life. This rewarding internship will be offered from December 2011 to April 2012. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to communicate with river and human rights activists around the world, contribute to print and web publications, engage our social media network, and be an integral part of a dynamic Berkeley non-profit office environment. Compensation will include training and $10 per hour for 10-15 hours per week.

Learn more about the Day of Action for Rivers (internationalrivers.org/dayofaction) and then apply for the position by sending your resume, a cover letter detailing your interest in this project, and a short writing sample to internship@internationalrivers.org by November 30, using the subject line "Day of Action for Rivers 2012."

Thank you,

Intern & Volunteer Coordinator
International Rivers

Ethiopia - government crackdown in Omo region intensifies

Ethiopia - government crackdown in Omo region intensifies
Survival International, November 3, 2011

Survival has received disturbing reports of a crackdown on tribal people
opposed to Ethiopia's program to remove them from their lands in the Omo
region and force them to resettle in villages.

The authorities have organized community meetings to inform people of
their controversial plans to lease out tribal lands to state and private
companies for conversion into large-scale sugar cane, cotton and
biofuels plantations.

After one such meeting, a group of Bodi and Chirim tribal people were
shown where they are to be resettled. However, after seeing the place,
they refused to be moved. The government responded by calling on the
security forces to attend a follow-up meeting. When they still refused
to move, four young men were rounded up and jailed.

Some Bodi felt so intimidated that they said the government could take
the land for sugar, because they 'could see that death was very near for
them if they said no.'

Members of the Suri tribe have also been arrested in the town of Tum for
opposing a plantation run by a Malaysian company, which has swallowed a
large part of their land where they graze their cattle.

Many Suri say the arrests are a show of force, to intimidate them into
not opposing the plantation. 'We lived there in peace, in the heart of
Suri land, the place where all of the Suri cattle were grazing during
both the rainy and dry seasons. Now, in this place there is a
plantation, owned by a rich Malaysian company.' said one young Suri man.

'The Malaysian investors and the government trained 130 soldiers who
were given 130 machine guns. If Suri become aggressive towards the farms
the soldiers are to kill Suri men, our sons,' said a Suri woman.

Meanwhile part of Mursi land has been cleared for a site to house
plantation workers, with a second camp currently under construction.
Officials reportedly told the Mursi that they will soon look for Mursi
elders and young men who oppose the plantation plans and imprison them.

It is estimated that there are up to 200 Bodi, 28 Mursi and 20 Suri in jail.

Many now fear that the security forces may start killing people.

Up to 300,000 hectares of tribal lands and national parks have been
earmarked for plantations in the Lower Omo Valley.

The plantations will be viable only because the controversial Gibe III
dam, currently under construction, will regulate the flow of the Omo
River and enable irrigation of the plantations. The dam will, however,
end the annual, natural flood on which all the Lower Omo Valley tribes
depend to grow their crops.

One Bodi sent out this message to Survival supporters: 'Please help
these people. This plantations project brings these people no peace.'

Another indigenous person appealed, 'Please stop this government from
terrorizing the indigenous people.'
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ADB OKs loan for Nam Ngum 3, Lao PDR

ADB OKs loan for Nam Ngum 3, Lao PDR
International Water Power & Dam Construction
03 November 2011
www.waterpowermagazine.com/story.asp?sectioncode=130&storyCode=2061054

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $465M loan to support
construction of the 440MW Nam Ngum 3 hydroelectric project on the Nam
Ngum River in northern Lao PDR.

The public-private power project will provide 2072GWh of clean energy
annually for export to neighboring Thailand, and is expected to generate
upwards of $770M for Lao PDR, of which more than $200M is specifically
earmarked for poverty reduction and environmental protection programs.

The project will comprise a 220m-high dam that will create a 27.5km2
reservoir. Seasonal flooding from the new reservoir will necessitate the
move of 144 households located near the planned reservoir. All eligible
families can receive permanent housing and title to their new
residential and agricultural land – a first in this area of the country.

Around 45 more households located along the upgraded national road and
the transmission line may also lose housing and parcels of land, and
will be fully compensated for their losses.

ADB said its stringent environmental and social safeguards will ensure
that any environmental and social impacts will be minimized and
mitigated, and the livelihoods and standards of living of all those
directly affected by the project will be better than they are now.

ADB is also actively supporting efforts to assess and address any
cumulative impacts from the various hydropower plants in the river
basin, including through the newly formed Nam Ngum River Basin Committee.

The plant, estimated to cost around $1B, will be built and operated for
27 years by the Nam Ngum 3 Power Company (NN3PC), which is owned by
three private sector companies: Thailand's GMS Lao Company Ltd and
Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding PCL, together with Axia Power
Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's Marubeni Corporation. The
Government of Lao PDR will also hold a stake through the Lao Holding
State Enterprises (LHSE).

ADB will lend up to $350M to NN3PC. Under a risk participation
agreement, commercial financial firms will assume the risk on up to
$150M of that. Thai banks and other international financial institutions
will also provide loans to the project. ADB is also lending
approximately $115M to the Lao PDR government to finance LHSE's equity
stake in NN3PC.

The Nam Ngum 3 plant, expected to be operational in 2017, will be
located upstream of two existing hydropower plants, and downstream from
another plant that is currently under construction. The Nam Ngum 4 A and
B plants are also planned upstream of Nam Ngum 3.
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Fog harvesting gives water to S. African village

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jIGW5pOUbLyJGk-tHT_PzFlJejLw?docId=CNG.7d8a2aaff1c6dfd828e23a2063da7642.381

Fog harvesting gives water to S. African village

By Sibongile Khumalo (AFP) 

TSHIAVHA, South Africa — When plumes of fog gather above the rocky mountains encircling a remote South African village, children look at them with excitement, knowing they will have clean drinking water at school.

Like many rural areas in the country, running water in Tshiavha village in Limpopo province is scarce, but the school-based fog harvesting nets have brought some relief.

Mountainous landscapes and a misty climate make Tshiavha village one of the few areas in dry South Africa where fog can be captured, with a system used in the Andes and the Himalayas that remains a novelty here.

But with experts predicting that southern Africa will become drier and hotter over the next four decades, such schemes are getting a new look as South Africa prepares to host the next round of UN climate talks in November.

Erected in 2007 with the help of a local university, the fog trapped in the nets provides up to 2,500 litres (quarts) of waters on a good day.

"The water is clean and safe with no chemicals added to it," said Lutanyani Malumedzha the principal of Tshiavha primary school.

According to Malumedzha, access to clean water had significantly improved school children's health and reduced the outbreak of waterborne diseases.

"Children used to bring their own bottles of water to school during the hot and dry months. The water was collected from muddy wells and not suitable for human consumption," said Malumedzha.

In some areas, communities share drinking water with cattle.

Although South Africa's water quality is rated among the best in world, rural communities lag behind when it comes to having running water.

"We have learnt to appreciate water and treat it as if it was a precious commodity," said Malumedza.

"Not a single drop is wasted. Some of it goes there," said Malumedza pointing to a vegetable garden which provides food for the school feeding scheme.

The four-metre high (13 feet) mesh net which stands outside the school's playground resembles a volleyball net, except for a gutter at the hem where water droplets fall, leading to a water tank a few metres away.

There are no electronics involved and the system requires little maintenance, Malumedza said.

As a relatively dry country, water is scarce in South Africa and remote areas with no infrastructure are hardest hit by the changing weather patterns.

"This is a cost-effective alternative which can be successfully explored given the water challenges in the country," said Liesl Dyson, a researcher from the University of Pretoria.

Limpopo province in the north, which borders Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique and is home to the renowned Kruger National Park, is one of the hottest regions in the country.

But the area is one of the few places in the country with a climate suitable for fog harvesting.

"Fog only is not enough, it also needs a bit of wind to blow it," said Dyson.

"It doesn't help much if the fog just settles on the mountains without moving," said Dyson.

She said the system was used in a few areas in the west coast and the Transkei in the Eastern Cape province.

According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa has annual rainfall of 490 millimetres (19 inches), half the world average.

Even without the effects of climate change, South Africa is expected to face water shortages by 2025, and plans to build a new dam in Lesotho to pipe more into the country.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

Desertec to start work on first African solar plant next year

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2121579/report-desertec-start-african-solar-plant

Report: Desertec to start work on first African solar plant next year
�

German media reports ground-breaking on first Moroccan solar farm
By BusinessGreen staff

01 Nov 2011

Ambitious plans to import renewable energy to Europe from solar farms
in North Africa took a major step forward this week, following reports
that the organisation behind the proposals will break ground on its
first solar thermal power plant next year.

Senior officials at the Desertec Industrial Iniatitive, a consortium
of primarily German-based energy, engineering and investment firms,
told reporters that it intends to begin construction on a 150MW solar
farm in Morocco that could later be expanded to up to 500MW of capacity.

According to German media reports, the first phase of the project will
take between two and four years to complete and will cost around �600m.

The Handelsblatt newspaper also reported this week that the group
plans to sign a development agreement with the Algerian government in
the coming weeks, giving it three plants in various stages of
development including the Morocco plant and a mooted project in Tunisia.

The Desertec project ultimately envisages raising up to �400bn to
invest in solar thermal projects in North Africa that could then
transmit electricity along high voltage direct current lines to Europe.

According to some estimates, the approach could provide up to 15 per
cent of Europe's energy by 2050, providing a central role in efforts
to decarbonise the continent's energy infrastructure.

It could also be supported by the recently proposed Helios Project,
which could see Greece pay off some of its debt mountain by providing
clean solar energy to its northern European neighbours.
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Upper Mekong Dams: China's dam plans don't hold water with panelists

China's dam plans don't hold water with panelists
Kristin Lynch, 19 October 2011
Phnom Penh Post

China's dam-building ambitions and alleged lack of transparency were
front and centre yesterday during a roundtable discussion on Mekong
River development held in the capital.

Representatives from the Chinese embassy defended their country's
record, claiming that China was "eager to participate" in regional
cooperation mechanisms.

"We aren�t dominating this river," embassy representative Xu Daizhu
said. "We want to cooperate with other countries in this region, and we
want to cooperate with each other to use the water resources in this
region."

However, panelists accused the Asian power of irresponsible development.

"Chinese dams cause unprecedented social and environmental problems,
causing damage to agriculture, fishery forests and ways of life," said
fellow panelist Pou Sothirak, former minister of industry, mines and energy.

China is now the top builder of dams in Cambodia, Ame Trandem, Southeast
Asia Program Director for International Rivers, said yesterday.
Currently, five large Chinese dams have been approved in the Kingdom and
another four are under consideration, Trandem said, adding that four
dams constructed on the Mekong in Chinas Yunnan province were undertaken
without consulting China�s neighbours.

During yesterday's discussion, China�s transparency also came under
assault. "The Chinese government in the past has been keeping all the
information on the dams confidential," Pou Sothirak said. "If your
government would be so kind as to join the Mekong River Commission, that
would be a big gift, because joining means you need to release
everything openly." Trandem supported allegations of a lack of
transparency, saying that, "to date, China has failed to meet
international standards of accountability, transparency and public
participation." However, Xu Daizhu upheld China's commitment to regional
cooperation. "China is willing to listen, we aren�t closing our doors
and doing our own thing," she said. "That�s why I am here and learning
about your concerns."
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international dam projects.

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Economic progress vs. cultural preservation in Ethiopia

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2011/1027/Africa-Rising-Economic-progress-vs.-cultural-preservation-in-Ethiopia

Africa Rising: Economic progress vs. cultural preservation in Ethiopia

Ethiopia's state project to make it into one of the world's top sugar
producers requires the resettling of semi-nomadic herders in permanent
villages. Which priority wins out: cultural preservation or economic
progress?

By William Davison, Contributor / October 27, 2011

Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley, a United Nations World Heritage Site along
the border with Kenya, is renowned for its numerous tribes, among them the
lip plate-inserting Mursi and bull-running Hamer.

Sixteen ethnic groups occupy the scorching, low-lying region, raising
cattle, and growing crops, often along the fertile banks of the Omo River
that wriggles its way through the bush.

Think you know Africa? Take our geography quiz.

Western tourists, archaeologists, and anthropologists are regular visitors
to observe the unique cultures and pre-human fossils.

But the Ethiopian government has begun a project to build sugar farms in
the area in an effort to take the nation into the top ten of global sugar
exporters. The plan, which would require resettling semi-nomadic herders
in permanent villages, puts the effort to modernize Ethiopia's archaic
agricultural system at loggerheads with the desire to preserve the
cultural identities of local ethnic groups.
A push for economic development

The state-run project launched this year � combined with other large-scale
farming investments irrigated by the outflow from an under-construction
hydropower dam � look likely to alter the area forever, initially for some
Bodi and Mursi communities who will be resettled to make way for the sugar
fields.

"They will still be pastoralists, but agro-pastoralists. They will not
roam around in search of water and grazing land," Abay Tsehaye, head of
the state-owned Sugar Corporation, says. "They will have enough grazing
land because we will supply them with irrigation."

The farms will be made possible by the regulated outflow from the upstream
Gibe III hydropower plant. The plant, which will almost double Ethiopia's
power generating capacity, is scheduled to be finished in 2013.

It will provide electricity to Ethiopia and also generate scarce foreign
exchange by supplying the region. Ethiopia's large hydropower potential �
due to plentiful rainfall in its highlands and mountainous terrain � is a
vital asset that must be utilized to bring the country out of poverty,
Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's leader of two decades, says.

Roads have been improved, scrub land demarcated, and construction of a
diversion weir begun for the six plantations fed by the Omo that will
occupy at least one-eighth of the Lower Omo area and use 3 billion cubic
meters of water per year. Despite the progress, resettlement plans and
technical studies on the plantations have not yet been completed, the
Sugar Corporation says.

Mr. Abay says agricultural experts, irrigation schemes, and social
services will bring much-needed development to a neglected backwater.
Critics like Survival International, a British charity that campaigns for
the rights of indigenous people, argue communities' rights are being
trampled and that the water use will parch Lake Turkana, another World
Heritage Site that straddles the Ethiopia-Kenya border.

They want these people to remain as primitive as they used to be, as poor
as they used to be, as naked as they used to be so that they will be
specimen for research and an agenda for raising funds," Abay says about
the project's naysayers.

'I want my children to be pastoralists'

But while the government says it has had extensive consultation with the
communities, several members of the Bodi tribe, who number about 7,000,
say such claims are exaggerated.

"The government is building it themselves. They are not sharing it with
other people, they did not call a meeting," father of three, enrobed Dori
Bella, who moves every month to graze his cattle said in a new school just
outside the village of Hanna. "We don't want to be begging in town, I want
my children to be pastoralists."

Activists spoke of a widespread fear of reprisals for speaking out and
predicted armed resistance to what they see as a government land grab.

A report this month from Survival also claimed that over 100 individuals
from the Mursi and Bodi were arrested for protesting the plan. But locals
said that recent detainments were not directly related to the project.

As our Land Cruiser wound its way to the Omo valley along a sturdy gritted
track, a broken-down truck carrying panels for plantation workers' homes
almost blocked the road after failing to mount a steep incline � an
indication of the huge logistical challenges involved in bringing
commercial farming to this far-flung region.

The water extracted for the farms will result in a five-meter reduction in
the level of Lake Turkana and eventually fewer fish, according to Sean
Avery, an engineer who published a report on the area for the African
Development Bank in November. Concerns over effects on Turkana prompted a
UNESCO committee to make a futile call for the government to halt
construction of Gibe III in July. A "fragile environment and the
livelihoods of tribes" will be destroyed, Survival states.

For the several thousand Turkana and Dassenech people depending on the
lake for their livelihood, the future is uncertain.

Educated Kenyan fisherman Michael Irgeno from the Dassenech tribe believes
the dam is a mixed blessing. Power and irrigation are welcome for the
deprived regions, but "at this time it's bad as most people have not heard
about Gibe III," he says in the half-light of his domed hut near the
wind-lashed shore. "It would be better if people come together with one
mind and decide what to do," he says. "But if they start without informing
people it will have an effect. Most of our community is illiterate so it
is hard for them to have an opinion."

related story from August:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2011/0801/Ethiopia-plans-ambitious-resettlement-of-people-buffeted-by-East-Africa-drought
Ethiopia plans ambitious resettlement of people buffeted by East Africa
drought
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