Houayxay, Laos – Fishing went nicely at present for Khon, a Laotian fisherman, who lives in a floating home constructed from plastic drums, scrap metallic 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 comprises all he must stay on this mighty river: Just a few metallic pots, a hearth to cook dinner meals on and to maintain heat by at night time, in addition to some nets and some garments.
What Khon doesn’t at all times have is fish.
“There are days once 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 probably the most scenic stretches of the Mekong River because it meanders by means of 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 world scramble for gold and uncommon earth minerals, essential for the manufacturing of recent applied sciences and utilized in every little thing from smartphones to electrical vehicles.
A fisherman alongside the Mekong River in Bokeo province, Laos (Al Jazeera/Fabio Polese)
Over the previous yr, 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 accordance 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 components of the river’s mainstream. The results have been noticed in Laos, prompting the Mekong River Fee to declare the scenario “reasonably severe”.
“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. It is 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.
Laotian fisherman Khon, 52, throws a internet from the financial institution of the Mekong River with out catching something (Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera)
Zachary Abuza, a professor on the Nationwide Conflict School in Washington and an professional on Southeast Asia, mentioned not less than a dozen, and presumably as many as 20, mines targeted on gold and uncommon earth extraction have been established in southern Shan State over the previous yr alone.
Myanmar is now 4 years right into a civil conflict 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, other than holding Tachileik city, the area’s predominant border crossing between Thailand and Myanmar.
Neither the RCSS nor the UWSA are “preventing 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 – probably with Chinese language merchants concerned. The navy in Naypyidaw can’t problem permits or implement environmental guidelines, however they nonetheless take their share of the earnings,” Abuza mentioned.
‘Alarming decline’
Air pollution from mining is just not 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, nearly a dozen large 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 movement.
Additional downstream, Laos has staked its financial future on hydropower.
In accordance with the Mekong Dam Monitor, which is hosted by the Stimson Centre assume tank in Washington, DC, not less than 75 dams are actually 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 different to coal.
However the rush to dam the Mekong is driving one other sort of environmental disaster.
In accordance with 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.
Immediately, one in 5 fish species within the Mekong is liable to extinction, and the river’s sediment and nutrient flows have been severely lowered, 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 save lots of these extraordinary – and terribly essential – 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 predominant market, the fish stalls had been almost abandoned.
“Perhaps this afternoon, or possibly 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 prospects.
At one other market, Sydonemy, simply outdoors Houayxay city, the story was the identical. The fish stalls had been naked.
“Typically the fish come, typically they don’t. We simply wait,” one other vendor mentioned.
“There was once big 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.
A fish vendor at Kad Wang View, the primary market in Houayxay, the place stalls had been almost empty throughout a latest go to (Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera)
‘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 severe downstream results in northern Thailand and Laos.
“The ecosystem and the lives that depend upon the river developed to adapt to particular hydrological circumstances,” Baird informed Al Jazeera.
“However for the reason that dams had been constructed, these circumstances have modified dramatically. There are actually speedy water degree fluctuations within the dry season, which was once uncommon, and this has unfavorable 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 perform,” he mentioned.
Bun Chan, 45, lives together 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 internet time and again – however for nothing.
“Seems like I received’t catch something at present,” Bun Chan informed Al Jazeera as he pulled up his empty internet.
“The opposite day I caught just a few, however we didn’t promote them. We’re protecting them in cages within the water, so not less than we’ve got one thing to eat if I don’t catch extra,” he mentioned.
Fisherman Hom Phan steers his boat on the Mekong River (Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera)
Hom Phan has been a fisherman on the Mekong his total life.
He steers his wood boat throughout the river, following a route he is aware of by intuition. In some components of the river, the present is robust sufficient now to pull every little thing beneath, 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’s going to rise or fall,” Hom Phan mentioned.
“Fish can’t discover their spawning grounds. They’re disappearing. And we’d 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 fireplace to catch to cook dinner a meal, he quietly contemplates the nice river he lives on.
Regardless of the dams in China, the air pollution from mines in neighbouring Myanmar, and the rising problem in touchdown the catch he depends on to outlive, Khon was outwardly serene as he thought of his subsequent day of fishing.
Along with his eyes fastened on the waters that flowed deeply beneath his residence, he mentioned with a smile: “We attempt once more tomorrow.”
