Chinese hydropower developers urged to prioritize ecology

China's environment ministry called upon hydropower developers to "put ecology first".

It said that the developers must pay strict attention to the impact of their projects on local rivers and communities.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a notice posted on its website, www.mep.gov.cn, that projects should be planned "comprehensively" and must pay attention to "economic and ecological benefits, local and overall interests as well as immediate and long-term interests."

It ordered developers to make sure that residents affected by hydropower development are fully informed and given a role to play in the decision-making process, and stressed that building dams in protected zones remains prohibited.

The ministry's intervention comes in the wake of a controversial decision to reduce the size of a protected nature reserve in southwest China's Chongqing in order to allow the construction of the massive 30-billion yuan or $4.75 billion Xiaonanhai hydropower plant on the Yangtze River.

The size of the reserve was already reduced in 2005 to make way for the Jinsha hydropower plant, currently being built by the Three Gorges Project Corp.

"It is the last freshwater wildlife reserve on the Yangtze, but even with the legal protection, it is still a strong possibility that it will be dammed," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.

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