rship on these fronts is already evident. At the end of last year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection released two documents related to Environmental Impact Assessments and hydropower plans that highlight the importance of a river’s ecological value and the need for public participation. While these guidelines go a long way toward mitigating potential impacts, they will require strong implementation by local and national authorities, greater inter-agency collaboration, and greater participation and monitoring by civil society in order to shift the discourse away from conventional high-risk projects towards more climate resilient, innovative, and long-lasting solutions. Climate change is indeed one of the most serious threats of our time, but if China succeeds in building dams on the scale that ise currently proposed, it will irrevocably destroy its great rivers and the ecological services that they provide for present and future generations.
Katy Yan is the China Program Coordinator and climate campaigner at International Rivers. She blogs at www.internationalrivers.org/blog/246.