Yang: 【3】Effects of Resettlement

There is a delicate balance between humans and the natural systems in which they interact. Humans often change their natural environment in an attempt to "improve" it. For nearly a decade, citizens’ groups outside China had been fighting plans for building the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Situated on a spectacular stretch of canyon known as the Three Gorges, this was to be the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. Dam builders – the governments, engineering industry, and international aid agencies – believed the Three Gorges Dam would do what no other dam on earth has been designed to do: protect millions of people living along the middle and lower reaches of the river from disastrous floods; generate up to 20,000 megawatts of hydroelectricity for China’s energy-hungry industrial centres; and transform a 600-kilometre stretch of the fast-flowing river into a smooth navigable waterway for ocean-going vessels. To do this would require forcibly relocating up to 1.4 million people, permanently sullying the legendary Three Gorges, drowning up to 632 square kilometers of precious farmland, and disrupting the world’s third-largest river – the lifeblood of China’s industrial and agricultural heartland. 

        

As the water level of the dam rose over 600 feet, entire villages, towns, and even cities were left completely underwater. Although the central government provided allocations for the involuntarily displaced residents, many had trouble in the transition from rural to urban life, many lost their livelihoods with their farmlands, and many suffered from psychological trauma as their ancestral homes of generations were lost. In addition to moving their belongings, many displaced people also want to move the graves of the deceased loved ones. After they leave, their houses are torn down to discourage people from moving back. During this relocation, the natives suffered a lot. The main difficulty of the relocation project is the lack of land availability. Relocation is not merely just the resettlement of homes but the farmlands that the lands people cultivated. The difficult objective was to find viable land for these farmers to grow their crops. Since China is already very densely populated, it is hard to find even an inch of land to cultivate any new farmlands. 

    

     

The prestige and the economic interests vested in the Three Gorges Project have a stark collateral. The project is based on the exploitation and the widespread abuse of the human rights of the more than one million people affected by it. Large communities displaced by the reservoir, earn as little as one third of the World Bank’s absolute poverty line of one dollar per day. It is these people – some of the poorest and most deprived citizens of China – who pay the price for implementing the $28 billion Three Gorges Project.

(VIDEO: Living With the Three Gorges Dam)According to an official count, more than 1.3 million people were displaced from their homes during the building of the world's largest dam. Now the "hidden dangers" of the project to those living around the dam are coming to light.

Reference:

"All About the Three Gorges Dam." Sherwood Institute

            <http://www.sherwoodinstitute.org/all-about-the-three-gorges-dam/>.

"ASIANOW - Asiaweek." ASIANOW - Asiaweek

            <http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/96/0719/ed2.html>.

"Chinese Dam Projects Criticized for Their Human Cost." International Rivers <http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/chinese-dam-projects-criticized-for-their-human-cost-2978>.

"SPECIAL SERIES; China - Three Gorges Dam - Choking on Growth, Part IV." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Nov. 2007 <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/19/world/asia/choking_on_growth_4.html>.