IN THE NEWS: Book review of Knowing the Salween River

A book review has been written by Stew Motta in Water Alternatives journal on “Knowing the Salween River: Resource Politics of a Contested Transboundary River” edited by Carl Middleton and Vanessa Lamb. The book was the result of a research project co-organized by CSDS and the York Center for Asian Research (see here). The book is published as open access and is available for download here.

The review identifies the book as “the first book of its type on the Salween River and represents a landmark contribution in understanding the diverse knowledge types and complex governance issues at play in that region.”

Read the full review in Water Alternatives here.

IN THE NEWS: Mekong's falling water level riles China's downstream neighbors

China's water relations with Southeast Asian neighbors are under strain after Beijing held up the Mekong River's flow at one of its large dams upstream, precipitating a sudden drop in volume for downstream countries that share the region's longest body of water.

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"There is still a need to deepen cooperation on transboundary water governance," said Carl Middleton, director of the Center for Social Development Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "The appropriate goal is [for the] accountable operation of hydropower projects that avoid social and environmental impacts to the extent possible, while acknowledging and compensating for harms created."

China, which refers to the Mekong as the Lancang River, has been in the crosshairs of local and international environmentalists for the power it wields to reduce the water flow. Critics say Beijing uses the river as a tap to be turned on or off to meet domestic water requirements.

For the full article, please click the link here.

IN THE NEWS: Book Review 'Knowing the Salween River: Resource Politics of a Contested Transboundary River' from Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography

By Coleen Fox [Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography]

In the last chapter of Knowing the Salween River, Nang Shining, a Shan woman living and working near the site of a proposed dam in Myanmar, writes of the frustration that communities feel when they are not consulted about projects affecting their lives and livelihoods. She discusses her efforts to create networks of young people across borders and basins, which is part of an effort to bring more voices to the decision-making process in the pursuit of social justice and sustainable development. Nang Shining’s story captures well the tensions that characterize resource politics in the Salween—while powerful national and regional actors push development and exclude local communities from meaningful participation, those same communities, supported by academics and civil society, work tirelessly to have their concerns acknowledged.

Knowing the Salween River sheds light on exactly these sorts of dynamics, revealing the multiple ways that institutions, academics, communities, and civil society organizations research and understand the river basin.

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Read the full review here.

Carl Middleton of CSDS is co-editor and co-author of this book (see here)

Get the book: Knowing the Salween River: Resource Politics of a Contested Transboundary River (Springer Open, 2019)