World Bank must wake up to Rogun mega dam “nightmare” in Tajikistan, say activists ahead of financing vote

The World Bank has to realise that the Rogun mega project “dream of the biggest dam [in the world] will turn into a nightmare for the people and nature in Tajikistan and beyond” and that it “still has an opportunity to pause the proposed investments and demand a new impact assessment, including for alternative proposals”.

So argue environmental activists Eugene Simonov and Manana Kochladze in an article published by Al Jazeera prior to a December 17 World Bank vote on financing the completion of the dam investment on the Vakhsh River, a major tributary to the Amu Darya River which flows onwards to Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

“Now it is the time for the bank to reflect on past mistakes, listen to civil society, and shift investments to smaller-scale projects where possible harms can be adequately mitigated,” the activists write.

They add: “The Tajik regime’s argument that this is a ‘life and death’ situation does not stand. There are alternatives to the current project that can provide the needed electricity and that would not have the same environmental and human impacts.

“Decreasing the height of the dam could massively reduce the number of [more than 60,000] people that risk being displaced, and the funds saved by downscaling the project could be used to build more efficient solar farms, thus diversifying the Tajik energy sector and avoiding overreliance on hydropower in a region prone to droughts worsened by climate change. A smaller project could also prevent some of the worst environmental impacts.

“In the 1990s, the World Bank itself spearheaded the establishment of the World Commission on Dams. In 2000, the commission released a damning report clearly demonstrating how mega dams can severely harm people and the environment, and why alternatives to any large dam proposal should be seriously considered from the start.

“Yet, with the recent push for a fossil fuel phaseout, large dams have managed to get renewed support. Despite the fact that some of them emit more greenhouse gases than fossil fuel power plants, dams are being promoted as climate-friendly projects and development banks are again heavily investing in them.”

The Rogun project, expected to cost at least $6.5bn, has been in development since the mid-1970s. It would solve Tajikistan’s perennial difficulties with power outages and provide substantial volumes of electricity for regional export.

Simonov, a coordinator of the Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition (RwB), and Kochladze, who works on democratisation and human rights at the CEE Bankwatch Network—an NGO that monitors the impacts of international financial institutions (IFIs) in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia—observe how a recent report, “Financing Repression”, co-published by the Coalition for Human Rights in Development, the Early Warning System and International Accountability Project, emphasises how concerns of the affected communities in Tajikistan risk remaining unheard because people fear protesting against the repressive regime.

Within Tajikistan, they add, the Rogun dam would impact critically endangered endemic sturgeons and unique floodplain ecosystems downstream, including the Tugay Forests of the Tigrovaya Balka, a World Heritage Site in the Vakhsh River floodplain. It would also adversely affect nature reserves downstream, in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, they say.

“The operation of the Rogun hydropower dam will further affect seasonal patterns of water inflow and its volume supporting the related ecosystems, their biodiversity, and the livelihoods of the already struggling riparian communities of Lower Amu Darya and its delta. Water redistribution shortages may fuel protests and transboundary tensions in a region already prone to conflicts,” Simonov and Kochladze contend.