Thanh Nien News
30 September, 2013
The government has pulled the plug on two proposed hydropower plants to protect a world biosphere reserve.
The order to call them off came from Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai, who had received a report on the likely environmental impacts of Dong Nai 6 and Dong Nai 6A dams on the Dong Nai Riverfrom the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The report said that the dams would destroy more than 327 hectares of forests, 128 ha of them in the Cat Tien National Park northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.
The dams would badly affect the Bau Sau (Crocodile Lake) wetlands inside the park and the flow of the Dong Nai River, it warned.
Bau Sau was named to the Ramsar list of wetlands, which now has more than 2,110 sites worldwide. It is based on the Ramsar Convention, an agreement between 165 member governments on the sustainable use of wetlands.