Harmful Mekong River air pollution blamed on lawless mining in Myanmar | Atmosphere Information

Houayxay, Laos – Fishing went properly at this time for Khon, a Laotian fisherman, who lives in a floating home constructed from plastic drums, scrap steel and wooden on the Mekong River.

“I caught two catfish,” the 52-year-old tells Al Jazeera proudly, lifting his catch for inspection.

Khon’s easy houseboat incorporates all he must stay on this mighty river: Just a few steel pots, a hearth to cook dinner meals on and to maintain heat by at evening, in addition to some nets and some garments.

What Khon doesn’t all the time have is fish.

“There are days after I catch nothing. It’s irritating,” he mentioned.

“The water ranges change on a regular basis due to the dams. And now they are saying the river is polluted, too. Up there in Myanmar, they dig within the mountains. Mines, or one thing like that. And all that poisonous stuff finally ends up right here,” he provides.

Khon lives in Laos’s northwestern Bokeo province on one of the vital scenic stretches of the Mekong River because it meanders by the center of the Golden Triangle – the borderland shared by Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.

This distant area has lengthy been notorious for drug manufacturing and trafficking.

Now it’s caught up within the international scramble for gold and uncommon earth minerals, essential for the manufacturing of latest applied sciences and utilized in all the pieces from smartphones to electrical vehicles.

Over the previous 12 months, rivers on this area, such because the Ruak, Sai and Kok – all tributaries of the Mekong – have proven irregular ranges of arsenic, lead, nickel and manganese, in keeping with Thailand’s Air pollution Management Division.

Arsenic, particularly, has exceeded World Well being Group security limits, prompting well being warnings for riverside communities.

These tributaries feed instantly into the Mekong and contamination has unfold to elements of the river’s mainstream. The consequences have been noticed in Laos, prompting the Mekong River Fee to declare the scenario “reasonably critical”.

“Latest official water high quality testing clearly signifies that the Mekong River on the Thai-Lao border is contaminated with arsenic,” Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia campaigns director for the advocacy group Worldwide Rivers, informed Al Jazeera.

“That is alarming and simply the primary chapter of the disaster, if the mining continues,” Pianporn mentioned.

“Fishermen have not too long ago caught diseased, younger catfish. This can be a matter of regional public well being, and it wants pressing motion from governments,” she added.

The supply of the heavy metals contamination is believed to be upriver in Myanmar’s Shan State, the place dozens of unregulated mines have sprung up because the seek for uncommon earth minerals intensifies globally.

Zachary Abuza, a professor on the Nationwide Warfare Faculty in Washington and an skilled on Southeast Asia, mentioned a minimum of a dozen, and presumably as many as 20, mines centered on gold and uncommon earth extraction have been established in southern Shan State over the previous 12 months alone.

Myanmar is now 4 years right into a civil battle and lawlessness reigns within the border space, which is held by two highly effective ethnic armed teams: the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the United Wa State Military (UWSA).

Myanmar’s navy authorities has “no actual management”, Abuza mentioned, aside from holding Tachileik city, the area’s foremost border crossing between Thailand and Myanmar.

Neither the RCSS nor the UWSA are “combating the junta”, he mentioned, explaining how each are busy enriching themselves from the chaos within the area and the frenzy to open mines.

“On this vacuum, mining has exploded – doubtless with Chinese language merchants concerned. The navy in Naypyidaw can’t concern permits or implement environmental guidelines, however they nonetheless take their share of the earnings,” Abuza mentioned.

‘Alarming decline’

Air pollution from mining isn’t the Mekong River’s solely ailment.

For years, the well being of the river has been degraded by a rising chain of hydropower dams which have drastically altered its pure rhythm and ecology.

Within the Mekong’s higher reaches, inside China, virtually a dozen big hydropower dams have been constructed, together with the Xiaowan and Nuozhadu dams, that are mentioned to be able to holding again an enormous quantity of the river’s circulation.

Additional downstream, Laos has staked its financial future on hydropower.

Based on the Mekong Dam Monitor, which is hosted by the Stimson Centre suppose tank in Washington, DC, a minimum of 75 dams at the moment are operational on the Mekong’s tributaries, and two in Laos – Xayaburi and Don Sahong – are instantly on the mainstream river.

As a rule, hydropower is a cleaner various to coal.

However the rush to dam the Mekong is driving one other sort of environmental disaster.

Based on WWF and the Mekong River Fee, the Mekong River basin as soon as supported about 60 million individuals and supplied as much as 25 p.c of the world’s freshwater fish catch.

Right now, one in 5 fish species within the Mekong is liable to extinction, and the river’s sediment and nutrient flows have been severely diminished, as documented in a 2023–2024 Mekong Dam Monitor report and analysis by Worldwide Rivers.

“The alarming decline in fish populations within the Mekong is an pressing wake-up name for motion to avoid wasting these extraordinary – and terribly vital – species, which underpin not solely the area’s societies and economies but in addition the well being of the Mekong’s freshwater ecosystems,” the WWF’s Asia Pacific Regional Director Lan Mercado mentioned on the launch of a 2024 report titled The Mekong’s Forgotten Fishes.

In Houayxay, the capital of Bokeo province, the markets appeared largely absent of fish throughout a latest go to.

At Kad Wang View, the city’s foremost market, the fish stalls have been almost abandoned.

“Possibly this afternoon, or perhaps tomorrow,” mentioned Mali, a vendor in her 60s. In entrance of her, Mali had organized her small inventory of fish in a circle, maybe hoping to make the show look fuller for potential clients.

At one other market, Sydonemy, simply exterior Houayxay city, the story was the identical. The fish stalls have been naked.

“Generally the fish come, generally they don’t. We simply wait,” one other vendor mentioned.

“There was once large fish right here,” recalled Vilasai, 53, who comes from a fishing household however now works as a taxi driver.

“Now the river offers us little. Even the water for irrigation – individuals are scared to make use of it. Nobody is aware of if it’s nonetheless clear,” he informed Al Jazeera, referring to the air pollution from Myanmar’s mines.

‘The river was once predictable’

Ian G Baird, professor of geography and Southeast Asian research on the College of Wisconsin–Madison, mentioned upstream dams – particularly these in China – have had critical downstream results in northern Thailand and Laos.

“The ecosystem and the lives that rely on the river advanced to adapt to particular hydrological circumstances,” Baird informed Al Jazeera.

“However for the reason that dams have been constructed, these circumstances have modified dramatically. There at the moment are fast water stage fluctuations within the dry season, which was once uncommon, and this has unfavourable impacts on each the river and the individuals,” he mentioned.

One other main impact is the reversal of the river’s pure cycle.

“Now there’s extra water within the dry season and fewer throughout the wet season. That reduces flooding and the helpful ecological results of the annual flood pulse,” Baird defined.

“The dams maintain water throughout the wet season and launch it within the dry season to maximise power output and earnings. However that additionally kills seasonally flooded forests and disrupts the river’s ecological operate,” he mentioned.

Bun Chan, 45, lives along with his spouse Nanna Kuhd, 40, on a floating home close to Houayxay. He fishes whereas his spouse sells no matter he catches on the native market.

On a latest morning, he solid his web repeatedly – however for nothing.

“Appears like I gained’t catch something at this time,” Bun Chan informed Al Jazeera as he pulled up his empty web.

“The opposite day I caught a couple of, however we didn’t promote them. We’re holding them in cages within the water, so a minimum of we’ve one thing to eat if I don’t catch extra,” he mentioned.

Hom Phan has been a fisherman on the Mekong his complete life.

He steers his wood boat throughout the river, following a route he is aware of by intuition. In some elements of the river, the present is robust sufficient now to pull all the pieces underneath, the 67-year-old says.

Throughout him, the silence is damaged solely by the chug of his small outboard engine and the calls of distant birds.

“The river was once predictable. Now we don’t know when it’ll rise or fall,” Hom Phan mentioned.

“Fish can’t discover their spawning grounds. They’re disappearing. And we would too, if nothing adjustments,” he informed Al Jazeera.

Night approaches in Houayxay, and Khon, the fisherman, rolls up his nets and prepares dinner in his floating residence.

As he waits for the hearth to catch to cook dinner a meal, he quietly contemplates the good river he lives on.

Regardless of the dams in China, the air pollution from mines in neighbouring Myanmar, and the rising issue in touchdown the catch he depends on to outlive, Khon was outwardly serene as he thought of his subsequent day of fishing.

Together with his eyes fastened on the waters that flowed deeply beneath his residence, he mentioned with a smile: “We strive once more tomorrow.”