CONCLUSIONS AND LESSONS LEARNED

An obvious and major conclusion is that the adverse social impacts of large dams have been seri- ously underestimated. Not only is a much larger number of people involved than acknowledged by researchers, government planners and donors, but there has also been a failure to acknowledge the range and magnitude of impacts on the different cate- gories of people; affects on resettlers, for example, differing from those on hosts as well as on other pro- ject affected people living below dams. This situation is partially due to a paucity of research, and especial- ly of research designed to assess long-term impacts.

Another lesson learned, and one that has been insufficiently documented, is that large dam projects are more apt to be subverted during implementation due to political and broader ideological considera- tions. Sri Lanka’s Accelerated Mahaweli Project has already been mentioned as an example. Large dams are sponsored by a powerful coalition including heads of state, multinational corporations of consult- ing engineers, contractors and suppliers, and multilat- eral and bilateral donors. As Gustavo Lins Ribeiro explains, multinational corporations to remain com- petitive must move smoothly from one project to another; indeed, “they stimulate the market for them by indicating and proposing new works” (1994: 50). Their involvement is facilitated by bilateral donors linking favorable credit arrangements (as through export-import banks) to contracts for nationally based firms and by the World Bank’s insistence on International Competitive Bidding.

Heads of state like Franklin Roosevelt of the United States and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana at least had visions, based on political ideologies and capital- intensive technology, of “their” projects stimulating regional development. It is this political component that John Waterbury has labeled “hydropolitics.” According to the World Bank’s Harald Fredericksen, “The conditions encountered in a country’s water sec- tor reflect the political demands and the wisdom and leadership in these matters more than any other fac- tor” (1992: 4). In regard to specific cases,

Waterbury’s assessment of the Aswan High Dam con- cludes that “the history of this project is testimony to the primacy of political considerations determining virtually all technical choices with the predicted

result that a host of unanticipated technical and eco- logical crises have emerged that now entail more political decisions.” (op. cit: 4).

Ribeiro, who also used the phrase “hydropolitics” in the title of his analysis of the binational

(Argentina/Paraguay) Yacyreta High Dam, notes statements by Argentine specialists of better alterna- tives to Yacyreta in the form of smaller dams, better sites for high dams and use of natural gas (an alterna- tive equally applicable to Quebec’s James Bay

Project). He emphasizes several other factors sup- porting the decision to proceed with Yacyreta. One is project-specific, involving competition between Argentina and Brazil (with its binational Itaipu High Dam) for “regional hegemony” (op.cit.: 45). The other can be generalized to other national political economies. Rejecting the word “development,” Ribeiro sees large-scale projects, like Yacyreta, as “a form of production linked to economic expansion” into “outpost” areas (ibid, 163).

Ribeiro’s interpretation would also appear to be applicable to both the James Bay Project and the Southern Okavango Integrated Water Development Project (SOIWDP). In addition to economic expan- sion, the former project gives the province of Quebec increased control over indigenous lands of ambigu- ous legal status as far as that province is concerned. SOIWDP would not only channel more water to the diamond mines (and hence to the advantage of both the government and the DeBeers/Anglo-American multinational corporation), but also provide increased access for Botswanan elite from the more densely populated eastern regions to Okavangan resources in the form of water for irrigation and grazing and water for cattle. Rhetoric aside, in neither project are the intended beneficiaries are supposed to be local peo- ple. Impacts on such people are ignored or played down—to the extent possible—throughout the pro- ject cycle. Appropriate assessment of those impacts, because they are widespread, is expensive, which is another reason they are underassessed.

If more local people are to become beneficiaries, not only must World Bank-type guidelines for reset- tlers be extended to all project affected people, but the horizon of environment and social impact assess- ments must be expanded to include all habitats and human populations likely to be affected. The same guidelines, however, must also be applied to other

options, including, for example, increased reliance on coal-generated electricity. Should that be done, in many cases, other alternatives to major project works would be seen as preferable. And where major dams continue to be the “least-cost alternative” such major changes in design and operation as controlled flood- ing would be called for.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper is based on several recent manuscripts including chapters on resettlement and on social impacts in Water Resources: Environmental Planning, Management and Development, edited by Asit K. Biswas (New York: McGraw Hill, 1997), as well as a chapter called “Advancing Theoretical Perspectives on Resettlement” for the forthcoming conference pro- ceedings of the Second International Conference on Displacement and Resettlement held at Oxford University in September 1996. I am indebted to Michael M. Cernea, Elizabeth Colson, Chris de Wet, Scott Ferguson, Robert Goodland, Michael M. Horowitz, Patrick McCully and Martin ter Woort for their comments on initial versions of those papers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acreman, M.C. and G.E. Hollis, eds., Water Management & Wetlands in Sub-Saharan Africa (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN/World Conservation Union, 1996).

Adams, W.M., Wasting the Rain: Rivers, people and planning in Africa (London: Earthscan Publications, 1992).

Adams, W.M. “Development’s Deaf Ear:

Downstream Users and Water Releases from the Bakalori Dam, Nigeria” (World Development 1993, Vol 21. No. 9: 1405-1416).

Altman, Irwin and Setha M. Low, Place Attachment (New York: Plenum Press, 1994).

Awachi, B.J.E., "On Fishing and Fisheries

Management in Large Tropical African Rivers with Particular Reference to Nigeria" in R. Welcomme, ed., Fisheries Management in Large Rivers, FAO Technical Report No. 194 (Rome: United Nations

Food and Agriculture Organization, 1979). Bartolome, Miguel and Alicia Barabas. “La presa Cerro de Oro y el Ingeniero Gran Dios:

Relocalizacion y Etnocidio Chinanteco en Mexico” (Col. Presencias, No.19 y 20. Mexico City: Consejo National para la Cultura y las Artes, INI, 1990). Beijing Review, April 6, 1972.

Bilharz, Joy A., Ghosts of Broken Hearts and Laws: The Allegany Senecas and the Kinzua Dam (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, in press). Bruwer, C., Poultney, C. and Z. Nyathi, “Community- based hydrological management of the Phongolo floodplain,” in M.C. Acreman and G.E. Hollis, eds., Water Management and Wetlands in Sub-Saharan Africa (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN/World

Conservation Union, 1996).

Cernea, Michael M., “Poverty Risks from Population Displacement in Water Resources Development,” Development Discussion Paper 355. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Institute for International

Development, 1990).

Cernea, Michael M., “Understanding and Preventing Impoverishment from Displacement: Reflections on the State of the Knowledge,” in Chris McDowell, ed., Resisting Impoverishment—Tackling the

Consequences of Development-Induced

Displacement (Oxford: Berghahn Books, in press). Chambers, Robert, Settlement Schemes in Tropical Africa: A Study of Organizations and Development (New York: Praeger, 1969).

Colson, Elizabeth F., The Social Consequences of Resettlement: The Impact of Kariba Resettlement upon the Gwembe Tonga (Manchester University Press for Institute for African Studies, University of Zambia, 1971).

Dickson, Ian J., Robert Goodland, Paul Henri Leblond, F. Larry Leistriz, Camille Limoges and Thayer Scudder, “Hydro-Quebec’s Grande-Baleine Environmental Impact Study: As Assessment Report.” (Prepared for Hydro-Quebec, 1994.)

Downing, Theodore E., “73 Mitigating Social Impoverishment when People are Involuntarily Displaced,” in Chris McDowell, ed., Resisting Impoverishment—Tackling the Consequences of Development-Induced Displacement (Oxford: Berghahn Books, in press).

Drijver, C.A. and M. Marchand, Taming the Floods: Environmental aspects of floodplain development in Africa (Leiden: Centre for Environmental Studies, State University of Leiden, 1985).

Dwyer, Daisy and Judith Bruce, A Home Divided: Women and Income in the Third World (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988).

Epstein, T. Scarlett, Economic development and social change in South India (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1962).

Epstein, T. Scarlett, South India: yesterday, today and tomorrow; Mysore villages revisited (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1973).

Fernandes, Walter, J.C. Das and Sam Rao, “Displacement and Rehabilitation: Extent and Prospects,” in Walter Fernandes and E.G. Thukral, eds., Development, displacement, and rehabilitation: issues for a national debate (Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1989).

Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock and Robert A. Fernea with Aleya Rouchdy, Nubian Ethnographies (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1991).

Frederiksen, Harald D. “Water Resources

Institutions: Some Principles and Practices.” World Bank Technical Paper No. 191 (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1992).

Gammelsrod, Tor. “Variation in shrimp abundance on the Sofala Bank, Mozambique, and its relation to the Zambezi River runoff,” Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 1992, Vol. 35: 91-103.

Gans, Herbert J., The Urban Villagers (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962).

Gans, Herbert J., People and Plans: Essays on Urban Problems and Solutions (New York: Basic Books, 1968).

Goldschmidt, Walter R., As you Sow: three studies in the social consequences of agribusiness (Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun, 1978).

Goodland, Robert, “Ethical Priorities in

Environmentally Sustainable Energy Systems: The Case of Tropical Hydropower.” in W.R. Shea, ed., Energy Needs in the Year 2000: Ethical and

Environmental Perspectives (Canton, Mass.: Watson Publishing International, 1994).

Government of China. “State Council Regulation on Land Acquisition and Resettlement Regulation for the Construction of Large and Medium-sized Water Conservancy Projects” (Beijing: Government of China, 1991).

Gunaratna, Malinga H., For a Sovereign State (Ratmalana, Sri Lanka: Sarvodaya Book Publishing Services, 1988).

Hohai University (National Research Centre for Resettlement), Papers on Resettlement and Development. (Nanjing, China: Hohai University, 1996).

Hollis, G.E., W.M. Adams and M. Aminu-Kano, The Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands: Environment, Economy and Sustainable Development of a Sahelian Floodplain Wetland (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1993). Horowitz, Michael M., “Victims Upstream and Down,” Journal of Refugee Studies 1991, 2:164-181. Horowitz, Michael M., Muneera Salem-Murdock and others. “The Senegal River Basin Monitoring Activity Synthesis Report” (Binghamton, N.Y.: Institute for Development Anthropology, 1990).

Hughes, Francine M.R., “The ecology of African floodplain forests in Semi-arid and arid zones:a review,” Journal of Biogeography 1988, 15: 127-140. Hunter, J.M., L. Rey, K.Y. Chu, E.O. Adekolu-John and K.E. Mott, Parasitic Diseases in Water Resources Development: The Need for Intersectoral Negotiation (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1993).

IUCN (The World Conservation Union), “IUCN-The World Conservation Union Newsletter: Wetlands Programme” (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, ongoing).

Khera, Sigrid and Patricia S. Mariella. “The Fort McDowell Yavapai: A Case of Long-Term Resistance to Relocation.” in Art Hansen and Anthony Oliver- Smith, eds., Involuntary Migration and Resettlement: The Problems and Responses of Dislocated People (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982).

Kumar, Krishna, ed., Rapid Appraisal Methods. Regional and Sectoral Studies (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1993).

Maema, Malafane and Norman Reynolds, “Lesotho Highlands Water Project-induced Displacement: Context, Impacts, Rehabilitation Strategies,

Implementation Experience, and Future Options,” in Chris McDowell, ed., Resisting Impoverishment: Tackling the Consequences of Development-Induced Displacement (Oxford: Berghahn Books, in press). McDonald, Michael J. and John Muldowny, TVA and the Dispossessed: The Resettlement of Population in the Norris Dam Area (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982).

Nelson, Michael, The Development of Tropical Lands: Policy Issues in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press for Resources for the Future, 1973).

Reynolds, Norman, “The design of rural develop- ment: proposals for the evolution of a social contract suited to conditions in Southern Africa,” Parts I and II. Working Papers 40 and 41. (Capetown: Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 1981).

Ribeiro, Gustavo Lins, “Transnational Capitalism and Hydropolitics in Argentina: The Yacyreta High Dam” (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994). Roder, Wolf, Human Adjustment to the Kainji

Reservoir in Nigeria: An Assessment of the Economic and Environmental Consequences of a Major Man- made Lake in Africa. (Lanham, N.Y. and London: University Press of America, 1994).

Salem-Murdock, Muneera, “Social science inputs to water management and wetland conservation in the Senegal River Valley.” in M.C. Acreman and G.E. Hollis, eds., Water Management and Wetlands in Sub- Saharan Africa (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN/World Conservation Union, 1996).

Salisbury, Richard F., A Homeland for the Cree: Regional Development in James Bay 1971-1981 (Quebec: McGill-Queen’s University Press, Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, 1986) Salisbury, Richard F., “Man-made Lakes as Modified Ecosystems,” Scope Report 2, International Council of Scientific Unions (Paris: ICSU, 1972).

Scudder, Thayer, The Ecology of the Gwembe Tonga (Manchester: Manchester University Press for Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 1962).

Scudder, Thayer, “River Basin Development and Local Initiatives in African Savanna Environments,” in David R. Harris, ed., Human Ecology in Savanna Environments. (London: Academic Press, 1980). Scudder, Thayer, “What It Means to be Dammed: The Anthropology of Large-scale Development Projects in the Tropics and Subtropics,” Engineering and Science 1985, 54 (4): 9-15.

Scudder, Thayer, “A Sociological Framework for the Analysis of New Lands Settlements.” In Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural

Development (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1981).

Scudder, Thayer, “The Need and Justification for Maintaining Transboundary Flood Regimes: The Africa Case,” Special Issue of Natural Resources Journal on The International Law of the Hydrologic Cycle, 1991. Vol. 31, No. 1:75-107.

Scudder, Thayer, “Development-induced Relocation and Refugee Studies: 37 Years of Change and

Continuity among Zambia’s Gwembe Tonga,” Journal of Refugee Studies, 1993. Vol 6 (2): 123-152.

Scudder, Thayer, “Recent experiences with river basin development in the tropics and subtropics,” Natural Resources Forum, 1994. 18 (2): 101-113. Scudder, Thayer. “Reflexions sur le deplacement des populations en relation avec la construction des bar- rages,” in Francoise Conac, ed., Barrages interna- tionaux et cooperation (Paris: Karthala, 1995).

Scudder, Thayer, “Resettlement” and “Social Impacts” chapters, in Asit K. Biswas, ed., Water Resources: Environmental Planning, Management and

Development (New York: McGraw Hill, 1997). Scudder, Thayer, “Development-induced Impoverishment, Resistance, and River Basin Development.” in Chris McDowell, ed., Resisting Impoverishment—Tackling the Consequences of Development-Induced Displacement (Oxford: Berghahn Books, in press).

Scudder, Thayer, “Advancing Theoretical

Perspectives on Resettlement,” in Chris McDowell, ed., Reconstructing Livelihoods: Towards New Approaches to Resettlement (Oxford: Berghahn Books, forthcoming).

Scudder, Thayer and Elizabeth Colson, “From Welfare to Development: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Dislocated People” in Art Hansen and Anthony Oliver-Smith, eds., Involuntary

Migration and Resettlement: The Problems and Responses of Dislocated People (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982).

Scudder, Thayer with R.E. Manley, R.W. Coley, R.K. Davis, J. Green, G.W. Howard, S.W. Lawry, D. Martz, Peter P. Rogers, A.R.D. Taylor, S.D. Turner, G.F. White, and E.P. Wright, “IUCN Review of the Southern Okavango Integrated Water Development Project. The IUCN Wetlands Programme” (Gland, Switzerland: Samara Publishing Company for IUCN, 1993).

Stanley, Daniel Jean and Andrew G. Warne, “Nile Delta: Recent Geological Evolution and Human Impact,” Science 1993. Vol. 260: 628-634.

Waterbury, John. 1979. Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1979).

Welcomme, R., ed., “Fisheries Management in Large Rivers,” FAO Technical Report No. 194 (Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 1979).

White, Gilbert F., “The Environmental Effects of the High Dam at Aswan,” Environment 1988. Vol.30, No.7: 5-11, 34-40.

Williams, Philip B., “Assessing the True Value of Flood Control Reservoirs: The Experience of Folsom Dam in the February 1986 Flood,” paper presented at

the 1993 American Society of Civil Engineers National Conference on Hydraulic Engineering and International Symposium on Engineering Hydrology, San Francisco, July 25-30, 1993.

World Bank, “Social Issues Associated with

Involuntary Resettlement in Bank-Financed Projects,” Operational Manual Statement 2.33. (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1980).

World Bank, “Involuntary Resettlement,” Operational Directive no.4.30 (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1990).

World Bank, “Resettlement and Development: The Bankwide Review of Projects Involving Involuntary Resettlement 1986-1993” (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1994).

World Bank, “The World Bank’s Experience With Large Dams: A Preliminary Review of Impacts,” Operations Evaluation Department (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1996).

World Bank, "OP/BP/GP 4.12 Involuntary

Resettlement" (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, forthcoming).