The 2nd Regional Stakeholder Forum on the Pak Beng Hydropower Project on 05 May 2017 at Lao Plaza Hotel, Vientiane, Lao PDR. There are around 200 participants who are from delegation of Mekong region which are Cambodia, Loa PDR, Vietnam, Thailand and representative of NGOs, private sector, embassy, development partners and others stakeholders.
In the discussion meeting, Dr. TEK Vannara, Executive Director of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, compares between the consultation of Pak Beng Hydropower development project and Don Sahong Hydropower development project, the quality is poor with three reasons: 1. There is no any field visit study for direct impact in some area, 2. The National Consultation were not conduct the Procedure for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA) among representative of community in Mekong River and Tonlesap River as well as people living in Mekong region and 3. There no documents translated from English language to Khmer language to read and get more detail on information. According to concern over the Bak Beng Dam from Local NGOs in Cambodia, we have been raised up several concerns to speakers such as some case studies had not been integrated civil society organization to participate and especially affected communities along the downstream Mekong as well as some of key species in Tonle Sap River.
In addition, he would request the integration of transboundary impact in the Ramsa which located in border of Cambodia and Loa PDR in Mekong downstream. The Ramsa is enriching fishery resource and bio-diversity, therefore, the study should integrate and consider, in order to save and survival the bio-diversity in Mekong basin. There were four topics to discuss among stakeholders: 1. Environment and Fisheries, 2. Social and Economic Issues, 3. Dam safety and navigation and 4. Hydrology and Sediment.