Citation: The Olivier Rebbot Award 2015

CITATION YEAR: 2015

CITATION NAME: The Olivier Rebbot Award

CITATION RECIPIENT: David Guttenfelder

CITATION RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: National Geographic Magazine

CITATION HONORED WORK: “Damming the Mekong: Harnessing a River or Killing It”

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A fisherman prepares to cast his nets at a section of Khone Falls, the largest waterfall by volume in Asia. Some of the flow will be diverted to make electricity at the Don Sahong dam, soon to rise on a side channel. The dam is expected to impede fish migration, threaten food sources, and and alter the way of life of those who rely on the Mekong.

The 958-foot-tall Xiaowan dam—the world’s sixth tallest—supplies power mostly to cities and industry on China’s booming south coast. Completed in 2010, the dam displaced more than 38,000 people. China has already built a cascade of dams on the main stem of the Mekong, defying calls for a regional moratorium on Mekong dam construction until  the impact can be better understood.

Fish pour out of the nutrient-rich Tonle Sap lake during the dry season, when its floodwaters recede into the Mekong. Dams may disrupt the seasonal flood cycle that underpins the fishery, which supplies many Cambodians with protein. An estimated 50 million people rely for food on fish caught in the Mekong.

Near the Wunonglong dam, workers and relocated people build new houses high above the river for displaced families who lost their homes to the rising water levels of the reservoir.

A boat adorned with artificial flowers heads toward the Xayaburi dam construction site in northern Laos. The Xayaburi Dam is the first dam being built on the main stem of the river south of the Chinese border. The Xayaburi is endorsed by the Laotian government, which has stated its ambition to become the "battery of Southeast Asia," and financed by Thai investors who are eager to supply their nation's booming cities with electricity. But the project, along with several other large dams proposed downstream, are vehemently opposed by Cambodia, Vietnam, and many environmental organizations because of their threats to the river and those who depend on it.

On an island in the Mekong near the site of the proposed Don Sahong Dam, a young woman washes dishes in the shade of a roadside food stall. This island is expected to be inundated once the nearby channel is blocked.

Two children climb a ladder to their home on the edge of the Tonle Sap Lake, where houses are on stilts to weather the lake’s seasonal fluctuations. There are fears that the building of dams on the main stem of the Mekong will block the natural seasonal pulse of the river and the process that carries water to fill Tonle Sap each year.

Carrying his belongings in a plastic bag in his teeth, a man checks fishing traps in the rapids above Khone Falls, the largest waterfall on the Mekong River.

Unbalanced by abundance, a tractor in the Mekong Delta threatens to dump its load of rice. The warm, humid delta, fertilized by river sediment, has allowed Vietnam to become a major rice exporter. Dams will trap fertile sediments upstream, threatening harvests.

Unbalanced by abundance, a tractor in the Mekong Delta threatens to dump its load of rice. The warm, humid delta, fertilized by river sediment, has allowed Vietnam to become a major rice exporter. Dams will trap fertile sediments upstream, threatening harvests.

In Ban Khok Yai, along the Mekong River, three generations share dinner by candlelight—like 30 percent of Laotians, they lack electricity. Their village will be inundated when the nearby Xayaburi dam is completed.

The hunger for electricity in Thailand is driving dam construction on the lower Mekong in Laos and Cambodia. Bangkok’s Central World, on the right, complex houses some 500 shops, a hotel, and an ice-skating rink.