Development and Wellbeing: The Relationship between Hydropower Development in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in China and the Wellbeing of the Local Population

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Development and Wellbeing:

The Relationship between Hydropower Development in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in China and the

Wellbeing of the Local Population

Anna Parshina

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in

Culture, Environment and Sustainability

Centre for Development and the Environment University of Oslo

Blindern, Norway

May 2014

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List of maps and tables

Maps

Map 1: The Nujiang dams xi

Tables

Table 1: Design and operation specifications for the 13 dams

in the Nujiang hydropower development project 14

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Acknowledgements

This thesis has been the biggest project I have completed so far, and I would like to thank everyone who helped me along the way, especially all the friendly people in China for allowing me to get an insight into their lives, being open for conversations and sharing their attitudes with me.

I want to express gratitude to my supervisor Professor Hal Wilhite from the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), who showed interest in my topic and motivated me to pursue it, in spite of the many challenges it posed. Thank you for guiding me and encouraging me to work and think independently.

This study would have been impossible without Professor Mette Halskov Hansen from the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental

Languages (IKOS) of the University of Oslo. Thank you for inspiring me and bringing me in contact with many interesting and extremely helpful people in China and Norway. Zhou Yong from the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights provided me with great practical advice on doing fieldwork in Yunnan. I also thank the director of the Green Watershed ENGO, Dr. Yu Xiaogang, and Professor Shen from the Yunnan University for taking time to meet me and broadening my view on the topic. Professor Shen also introduced me to the invaluable research assistant, who accompanied me to the remote villages, started conversations and opened doors. She made communication with the local people possible and pleasant. Thank you for your time, patience, and hard work.

Special gratitude goes to all the wonderful staff and students at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI) for taking me on board and providing me with support during the writing process. Being at FNI was an amazing opportunity for me, and I have gained invaluable professional and social experiences. I am especially grateful to Iselin Stensdal, my contact person at FNI, and Leif Christian Jensen for the time and energy they invested in commenting on and

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discussing my thesis. I would also like to thank the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights for inviting me to share my work at a seminar of the China Autonomy Programme and providing useful comments, which helped me improve my thesis and look at it from a different perspective. I am also grateful to Mònica Guillén-Royo from SUM for helping me cope with theoretical challenges in my thesis.

Finally, I am grateful to Rowan for always being there for me, without your encouragement and care I would have never accomplished this work.

Anna Parshina Oslo, April 2014

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Abbreviations and equivalents

Abbreviations

CCP Chinese Communist Party

ENGO Environmental Non-Governmental Organization

GONGO Government Organized Non-Governmental Organization HSAP Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol

IDAM Integrated Dam Assessment Modelling IFC International Finance Corporation IHA International Hydropower Association IRN International Rivers Network

IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature MA Millennium Ecosystem Assessment\

MW Megawatt

NBSC National Bureau of Statistics of China

NHDP The Nujiang hydropower development project NLAP Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture

RQ Research Question

SCPRC State Council of the People’s Republic of China TAR Tibet Autonomous Region

UN United Nations

UNEP United Nations Environmental Programme

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization WCD World Commission on Dams

WHO World Health Organization Equivalents

¥1 (yuan) = $0.16 (February 2013) 1 mu (亩) = 1/15 of a hectare 1 jin (斤) = 0.5 kilograms

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Glossary of Chinese terms

Romanization Chinese characters English equivalent

aojiu 傲酒 an alcoholic beverage

made of corn or rice Bingzhongluo xiang 丙中洛乡 Bingzhongluo village

budui 部队 army or units

caoyao 草药 herbal medicine

chongcao 虫草 cordyceps

chuzhong 初中 junior high school

dazhen 打针 medicinal injections,

acupuncture

dianli zhuangji guimo 电力装机规模 installed capacity of electric power dongchong xiacao 冬虫夏草 Chinese caterpillar

fungus

fenqiang 粉墙 painting walls

funü zhuren 妇女主任 director of women’s

affairs in a villagers’

committee

guanxi 关系 personal connections

Jiefang 解放 ‘The Liberation’, refers

to the victory of the CCP over the Nationalists in 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic of China

kuaijun 块菌 truffles

laoshu 老鼠 a rat, mouse

laowai 老外 a foreigner

Liuku ba 六库坝 the Liuku dam

Liuku zhen 六库镇 Liuku township

liusuo 溜索 a way of crossing a river

on a rope, a traditional cableway

Mabuzhi yinshui 麻布汁引水 the Mabuzhi water

diversion

Maji ba 马吉坝 the Maji dam

manyi 满意 satisfaction

Nujiang 怒江 the Nujiang, also known

as the Nu River or the

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Salween river

Puladi ba 普拉底坝 the Puladi dam

Renmin Ribao 人民日报 The People’s Daily, a

Chinese newspaper

Saige ba 赛格坝 the Saige dam

sanjiang bingliu

三江并流

‘Three Parallel Rivers’

UNESCO natural world heritage site

sanlunche 三轮车 a three-wheel motor

vehicle

sanqi 三七 Panax ginseng

shanshang 山上 The mountainous area

along Nujiang

Songta ba 松塔坝 the Songta dam

tiandi zhenshou de chubu

田地征收的补助 financial compensation for the expropriation of farmland

tuigeng huanlin 退耕还林 ‘Grain for Green’

programme

tulianhua 吐莲花 ‘Vomiting’ lotus

xiang 乡 a village

xiang 香 fragrant, tasty (in

relation to food)

xingfu 幸福 happiness

xuelianhua 雪莲花 Snow lotus

Yabiluo ba 亚碧罗坝 Yabiluo dam

yaocai 药材 medicinal materials

yidong gonsi 移动公司 a telecommunication

company

Yuejinqiao 跃进桥 Yuejinqiao (place)

zhayu 炸鱼 blast (dynamite) fishing

zhen 镇 a township

zhongyao 中药 traditional Chinese

(herbal) medicine

zhujiuge 祝酒歌 songs usually sung at

gatherings while drinking alcoholic beverages

zizhizhou 自治州 an autonomous

prefecture

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Map 1: The Nujiang dams. Source: Probe International (2011).

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1. Introduction

“Young man in front of me, come, if you can, to this side of the water”, a young woman sang to us while she was preparing food in her house located on the bank of the Nujiang. It was late October 2013 and the sun was shining, my boyfriend, a recently acquainted Chinese student and I were in a village in south-western China. We had come to the Nujiang Valley to conduct fieldwork for this thesis. Despite the relaxed atmosphere, since 2003 the valley has been at the centre of an intense struggle between environmental activists,

journalists, the governments of China, Myanmar and Thailand, and business interests.

The reason for this ongoing struggle is a 13-dam cascade that the Chinese government has proposed to build on the Nujiang, also known as the Salween River. The government presents hydropower development as a major path towards poverty alleviation and greening of the national energy sector. In recent plans the Chinese government has set the target to increase the total installed hydropower capacity by 50% (Chen 2012:58). One of the main locations for increasing hydropower capacity is on the Nujiang, in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture (NLAP) in Yunnan province (see Map 1).

The prefecture government and the state-owned Yunnan Huadian Nujiang Hydropower Cooperation are the two main proponents of the Nujiang hydropower development project (NHDP), and they claim that revenues from selling the electricity generated by the dams will increase the flow of

investment into the regional economy, contribute to poverty alleviation in the region, and bring modernization to the remote areas of Yunnan province (Li et al. 2012). The project has however met with strong opposition from Chinese and foreign environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs),

scientists, journalists, and some environmentally inclined government officials, who argue that the dams will degrade the Nujiang Valley ecosystems and decrease the wellbeing of the people who live along the river bank in China,

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Myanmar and Thailand. In addition, a certain area along the part of the Nujiang, which flows through the NLAP, was listed as a natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2003. Apart from its unique biodiversity, the prefecture is also extraordinarily ethnically diverse, and the dams are planned to be built in areas populated by several ethnic minority groups. As McCully (1996:70) writes, “[i]ndigenous and tribal peoples and other marginalized ethnic minorities make up a disproportionately large percentage of those who lose their livelihoods to dams”. These arguments outline the controversial character of the Nujiang hydropower development project: although revenues from electricity generation on the Nujiang may be used for regional

development and may improve the lives of the local people, previous hydroelectricity projects both in China and in other parts of the world have caused severe degradation of river ecosystems and resettlement of millions of people, leading to multiple social problems.

Amidst the ongoing debate and controversy surrounding the project, residents of one village located on the Nujiang in Lushui County of the NLAP were resettled beginning from 2008 in anticipation of the construction of the Liuku dam reservoir (Brown and Xu 2010:777). The national 12th five-year plan on energy development (2013) called to “advance hydropower base construction [on the Nujiang]” (SCPRC 2013: Chapter 3, Section 1, Part 4).

According to a Songta dam construction worker, with whom I spoke during my fieldwork, preliminary infrastructure, such as a new road tunnel and pipe tunnels, have already been constructed at the Songta dam site on the Nujiang in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

The Nujiang Valley is a border region of great natural beauty and cultural and biological diversity. A better understanding of the ways in which human wellbeing is related to the services provided by the Nujiang Valley ecosystems is essential for designing more sustainable developmental projects that would increase the wellbeing of the local villagers.

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1.1 Research questions, objectives and rationale for the choice of topic

The NLAP is located in a remote part of Yunnan province, and the population of the prefecture is mainly rural. The majority of inhabitants in the villages are engaged in agricultural activities, and there is a close relationship between them and the natural environment of the Nujiang Valley. The lives of local villagers are to a big extent dependent on the goods and other non-material benefits obtained from local ecosystems. It is likely that large-scale

hydropower development will influence the natural environment of the

Nujiang Valley and impact human wellbeing. The main research questions that this thesis aims to answer are: What is the relationship between the ecosystem services provided by the Nujiang Valley and the wellbeing of the local rural population in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture? How will hydropower development on the Nujiang influence this relationship and the wellbeing of the local people?

A better understanding of the role that the goods and other non-material benefits provided by the natural environment play in the lives of local people, and of the impact that ecosystem modification by large-scale natural resource use has on human lives can help to ensure that economic development brings positive and sustainable changes to human wellbeing. Studying wellbeing of people in developing countries might seem less relevant than focusing on the sufferings of local people due to poverty. However, as Gough et al. (2007:3) argue, there are a number of reasons why it is important to “confront this apparent incongruity”, and the main reason is “to acknowledge the fully

rounded humanity of poor men, women and children in developing countries”, it is important to admit, that “they are not completely defined by their poverty, nor can they be fully understood in its terms alone. Poor people in developing countries strive to achieve wellbeing for themselves and their children”.

Another important justification of a wellbeing research based in a developing county is that people in developing countries often “experience what appear to

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be high levels of life satisfaction” (ibid.). The findings in my thesis will confirm this statement.

I have chosen the Nujiang Valley as my case, because I believe that the effort of the Nujiang Campaign¹ has created an opportunity for attaining more sustainable hydropower development policy and practice in China. Buesgen (2008) studied the Nujiang Campaign and its consequences and provides an insight into how a large-scale hydropower project can be put to halt if costs exceed benefits. Construction of hydroelectric dams on the Nujiang has already been suspended for almost a decade, and as Beck et al. (2012:85) argue, analysis of the few examples of dam-related projects that have been put on halt for sustainability re-evaluation or even cancelled, can help to

understand the ways to prevent or improve unsustainable hydropower projects.

Moreover, my thesis studies the perspective of the local population, and the insights provided by consultations with the locals can make an important

contribution to designing a more sustainable hydropower project. In addition to that, it is important that local people are aware of and agree with the changes that will occur in the local natural environment, and have a way of expressing their concerns and desires in relation to it. My study aims at bringing decision- makers’ attention to the concerns of the local villagers and poses some

questions raised by these concerns that must be addressed prior to project implementation.

My thesis contributes to the knowledge about several important issues.

First of all, it provides insights into the daily lives of several ethnic minorities in south-western China and increases the understanding of their relationship with the natural environment. Understanding the human-natural environment relationship should lie at the basis of any developmental project, as the general ambition of development lies in improving human wellbeing (Dasgupta 2001).

Secondly, the thesis discusses what changes occur in the lives of rural people

1 The Nujiang Campaign refers to the campaign against hydropower development on the Nujiang that took place in 2003, more about this campaign in section 2.1 of this thesis.

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in the process of rapid economic development in China. Thirdly, the thesis aims to increase awareness about some of the potentials and challenges of large-scale hydropower development in one of the most culturally and biologically diverse areas in the world. The insights generated in this thesis can be used for research on the implications of hydropower development policy and practice in other parts of China. Findings in this thesis can also contribute to research on hydropower development in other parts of the world, as there are several Chinese hydropower companies engaged in dam

construction abroad (see McDonald et al. 2009).² It is important that these Chinese companies bring along sustainable practices of dam infrastructure construction and operation. Finally, from the theoretical perspective the thesis aims to contribute to the knowledge of the impact of dam-related

developmental projects on ecosystems and human wellbeing.

1.2 Thesis structure

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the relevant literature and background information about hydropower development in China and the NHDP in

particular, arguments for and against large-scale hydropower projects, ways of conducting a sustainability analysis of a dam-related project, and about the benefits of integrated assessment of human and environmental consequences of dam construction. Chapter 3 discusses the main analytical concepts and theoretical approaches used in the thesis. The methodological approach and limitations of this study are discussed in Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 contains the analysis of the relationship between the ecosystems of the Nujiang Valley and human wellbeing in three villages in the NLAP. Chapter 6 reviews the major findings of in the thesis and places them within a broader analytical space.

2 For example Sinohydro, the China International Water and Electric Cooperation, the China National Heavy Machinery Cooperation, and the China Southern Power Grid are involved in building dams across Asia and Africa. (McDonald et al. 2009)

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Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the thesis and provides critical reflections on the gaps in this study and presents some suggestions for future research.

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2. Background information and literature overview

This chapter sets the stage for the analysis in this thesis. It discusses arguments for and against large-scale hydropower development, the context of

hydropower policy and practice in China, and the NHDP in particular, as well as the NLAP, its natural environment and peoples, different approaches to conducting sustainability analysis of dam-related projects, the methodological and theoretical critique of such approaches and several tools developed for an integrated assessment of human and environmental consequences of dam construction.

2.1 Large-scale hydropower projects: arguments for and against

In 2007 there were more than 45 thousand large dams³ worldwide (Beck et al.

2012:73). Beck et al. (ibid.:74) write that the number of new large dams being built in the developed world is rapidly decreasing, because most of the feasible projects have already been developed. They identify changes in ideology and growing awareness of the social and environmental impacts of dams as other major factors that have contributed to the decrease in large dam construction in the developed world. According to Beck et al. “evolution of societal opinion in favour of the natural environment often follows post-industrialization”

(ibid.:83). It is only after the country has reached quite high levels of

development that sufficient environmental protection policies and mechanisms are employed. Environmental degradation increases in a country until it

reaches a certain ‘tipping point’, after that it starts to decrease due to the foundation of institutions aimed at environmental protection.

3 According to IRN (2014), in dam building industry a dam is categorized as a large dam if it higher than 15 metres, equivalent to a four-storey building.

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Large dams, however, are currently being built in a number of developing countries by domestic and foreign companies. Besides generating electricity large dams have two other main functions. The first function relates to storing water in order to compensate for the fluctuations in river flow. The stored water is then used to satisfy the demand for water and energy in high seasons.

The second function of large dams is raising the level of water upstream from the dam, so that the water can be diverted into a canal or increasing the

difference in height between the surface of a reservoir and the river level downstream (‘hydraulic head’) (McCully 1996:11). Reservoirs and heads allow dams to generate electricity, supply water to household and industries, control floods and assist navigation.

However wide the possibilities for development provided by hydropower projects, the construction of dams inevitably influences river ecosystems and all their constituencies. Both the benefits of hydropower development and the disparity in the distribution of those benefits, as well as the changes in river ecosystems influenced by dam construction have been broadly studied. The majority of texts concerned with the social dimension of hydropower development criticize construction of large dams (e.g. McCully 1996, Beck et al. 2012). Often the economic benefits derived from electricity generation by the dams are prioritized by decision-makers, and the potential negative social and environmental consequences of dam construction are neglected. Resettlement and loss of farmland by the local people are probably the biggest social impacts of dam construction and are often considered an acceptable cost when measured against the benefits that electricity will bring.

Apart from that, hydropower development often leads to a decrease in the quality or availability of fish and other riverine resources, this can also impact lives of local people in a negative. Indigenous peoples, who lead subsistence lifestyles, are considered to suffer heaviest from the loss of natural resources, which follows dam construction (ibid.:74). Reservoirs are also know to provide an environment where harmful microorganisms breed and, therefore,

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can have adverse effects on human health (ibid.:74). Dam opponents also argue that dams are a tool of hydropower development companies and governmental officials to obtain control over public resources and extract profit from them. In this process the rights and desires of the people whose livelihoods depend on these resources are largely ignored. Dams are

increasingly being seen as a tool of the wealthy and more powerful groups to get control over the common land, water and forest resources of the politically weak groups of people (McCully 1996:24). With these issues being raised, it is necessary that new forms of resource governance take place in the Nujiang Valley that would allow the opinions and aspirations of the local population of the Nujiang Valley to be taken into consideration and their basic human rights to be respected while planning resource exploitation.

In addition, large dams and reservoirs are not just constructions, which generate income and electricity and store water. They can also be seen as

“concrete, rock and earth expressions of the dominant ideology of the

technological age: icons of economic development and scientific progress to match nuclear bombs and motor cars” (McCully 1996:3). McCully (ibid.) and Scudder (2005) studied large hydroelectric dam construction around the world and its environmental and human consequences. Dams have been constructed on most of the biggest rivers in the world, turning rivers into ‘staircases of reservoirs’ (McCully 1996:6). Massive dam construction in the last century has led to significant degradation of river ecosystems around the world making them the most degraded major ecosystems in the world (ibid.:7), and affecting the livelihoods of people living in close connection with the river ecosystems.

To sum it up, the possibilities provided by hydropower for regional

development are considerable. At the same time, the environmental and social consequences of hydropower development invoke strong opposition to it. The position of dam opponents is strengthened by the existence of alternative developmental possibilities that allow satisfying the same needs as are satisfied

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by the dams, while these alternatives are said to have milder environmental and social impacts.

2.2 Hydropower in China

Today China is among the world leaders by the number of large hydroelectric dams. Half of the world’s 45 thousand large dams are built or are under construction in China (McDonald et al.:294). In 1949 China had eight large dams, and 40 years later it had already around 19,000 (McCully 1996:4). Shui (1998) gives an account of the history of hydropower development in China beginning from 1949 and discusses the disastrous dam construction projects during and after the Great Leap Forward campaign of the late 1950s.⁴ One of the most infamous dam projects in China has been the Three Gorges dam, which required resettlement of a large amount of people and had disastrous social and environmental consequences. The volume The River Dragon Has Come compiled by Dai Qing (1998), which was published during the

construction of the dam and aimed at putting a halt to the project, is a

collection of essays discussing the disastrous effects of the construction of the Three Gorges dam. The Chinese domestic resettlement and environmental issues connected to the Three Gorges project, as well as the related changes in dam policymaking are further discussed in detail in the book Environment and Resettlement Politics in China: The Three Gorges Project by Gørild

Heggelund (2004).

Hydropower plays an increasingly important role in electricity generation in China (Zhao et al. 2011, Zhao et al. 2012). In 2010 dams accounted for 22.2% of the total Chinese installed energy capacity (Chen 2012:57). Hydropower development is seen both as a way to increase electrification of remote regions and to generate electricity in a more sustainable manner. According to Zou (2012), China possesses significant

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amounts of river resources that can be economically exploited and the Chinese authorities expect that consumption of electricity generated by dams will make a big contribution to an increase in domestic renewable energy consumption (ibid.:465). According to China’s 12th five-year plan on energy development, the proportion of clean energy resources will gradually rise, and hydropower is seen as a major path towards this increase.

In 2010 total installed capacity of electric power in China was 970 million kilowatt. The installed capacity of thermal power was 710 million kilowatt, nuclear electric power 10,82 million kilowatt, wind power 31 million kilowatt, and hydroelectricity 220 million kilowatt, giving China the biggest installed capacity of hydropower in the world (SCPRC 2013: Chapter 1). One of the main aims of energy development in the 12th five-year plan is to ensure that while in 2010 electricity generation by hydropower accounted for 220 million kilowatt, in 2015 it should reach 290 million kilowatt, with a yearly growth of 5.7%. It is specified that in 2015 the installed hydropower capacity will include 30 million kilowatt of pumped storage power plants⁵ (ibid.:

Chapter 2, Section 3).

In the plan the central government orders local governments and relevant departments to coordinate hydroelectric development with

consideration for the wellbeing of relocated people, environmental protection, integrated utilization (multipurpose use) of water resources, and local socio- economic development. Local governments and departments are ordered to intensify planning of river basin hydropower, and actively develop

4 For more on the ideology and implementation of development projects that set out to conquer nature in China during the 50s, 60s and 70s see Shapiro (2001).

5 The principal characteristic of a pumped-storage power plant is that during the off-peak hours pump turbines bring the water into the reservoir. This water can later be used during peaks in electricity demand or to compensate for temporary outages at other power plants in the area. Pumped-storage power plants use energy from other energy sources which are not so easily adaptable to load fluctuations. These could be fossil fuels, nuclear energy etc.

(Alstom 2014).

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hydropower. At the same time local governments should consider issues concerning the environment and the resettlement of the people. As to the main bases of hydropower development for the coming five years, the central

authorities order to comprehensively carry forward hydropower base construction in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Mekong River, and in the upper reaches of the Yalong River, the Dadu River and the Yellow River, and in the middle reaches of Brahmaputra River. The local authorities and relevant departments are instructed to orderly advance hydropower base construction in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Mekong River and on the Nujiang. During the 12th five-year plan the construction of 120 million kilowatt of conventional hydropower and 40

million kilowatts of pumped storage power plants will begin. By 2015 installed capacity of the national conventional hydropower and pumped storage power plants should reach respectively 260 million kilowatt and 30 million kilowatts (ibid.: Chapter 3, Section 1 Part 4).

Flood control, electricity generation, irrigation and provision of water for urban areas and industries are among the main functions of hydroelectric dams. While recent government reports promote hydropower development and the possibilities it provides for regional development, a lot of research has been done in and outside of China on the environmental and social

consequences of hydropower development on Chinese rivers. As Beck et al.

(2012:79) put it, the benefits of hydropower development are quite significant, for example, damming an unpredictable river can save lives of people who live along it. However, the sustainability of dam projects in China is questioned by their far-reaching negative impacts. Beck et al.’s doubts about the

sustainability of Chinese hydropower are shared by Chen (2012), who studied hydropower development policy in China. In his recent book China’s Climate Policy Chen (ibid.:56) refers to Chinese hydro- and nuclear power

development as “pushing forward hydropower and nuclear mammoths”. The

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extraordinary emphasis on hydropower might worsen the environmental crisis in China.

Another characteristic of hydropower development policy in China is that it is closely associated with poverty alleviation (Magee and Kelley 2009:135). Success of any alternative development project depends on

showing that it will match or exceed hydropower’s poverty reduction potential.

Such work is already under way in China, and various actors are involved in re-evaluating and improving the policy and practice of large dam construction.

The improvements in hydropower development policy are becoming more realistic with the development of new strategies of flood control, such as rehabilitation of wetland and spillway management. In addition to that, energy conservation can contribute to meet the objectives of power supply by the dams. However, mitigation of the potential threats posed by those large dam- related projects, which are carried out in spite of the possible alternatives, requires improvement in the relevant laws and regulations and in transparency of the decision-making process (ibid.:134). Given the efforts of domestic and international actors to improve the plans of the NHDP, extensive media coverage of and scientific interest in the issue, as well as the changing

approaches of the Chinese government towards more sustainable development, there is hope that hydropower can be developed in a more sustainable way on the Nujiang.

The Nujiang is one of the main rivers in Asia, and it is estimated to support the livelihoods of six million people in China, Myanmar and Thailand (Magee and Kelley 2009:115). In addition to supporting the lives of local people, the natural environment of the Nujiang Valley is also considered to be one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world. However, the local government and hydropower development company are insisting that the main value of the river lies in the assistance to regional development, which it will provide through electricity generation by the dams. The river is extraordinarily attractive from hydropower development perspective, the river is 2800 km

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long and it drops approximately 5000 metres during its course (ibid.). The estimated maximal hydropower potential of the parts of the river which run through China is 36,400 MW, of which 21,000 MW are considered to be exploitable through a cascade of 13 dams stretching from Zayu County in Tibet to Longling County near the China-Myanmar border (Brown et al.

2008:620). The construction of a 13-dam cascade (see Table 1) on the Nujiang was first proposed in 2003 (McDonald 2007:2).

Table 1. Design and operation specifications for the 13 dams in the Nujiang hydropower development project.

Dam name Height (m) Installed electrical capacity

(MW)

Reservoir storage capacity (million m²)

Estimated population

displaced

Songta 307 4,200 6,312 3,633

Bingzhongluo 55 1,600 13.7 0

Maji 300 4,200 4,696 19,830

Lumadeng 165 2,000 663.6 6,092

Fugong 60 400 18.4 682

Bijiang 118 1,500 280 5,186

Yabiluo 133 1,800 344 3,982

Lushui 175 2,400 1,288 6,190

Liuku 35,5 180 8.1 411

Shitouzai 59 440 700 687

Saige 79 1,000 270 1,882

Yansangshu 84 1,000 391 2,470

Guangpo 58 600 124 34

Total for 13 Dams

21,320 15,108.8 51,079

Source: Tilt (2012:372).

As mentioned before, one of the main proponents of hydropower development on the Nujiang is the prefecture government. According to their estimates, electricity generated by the dams would increase the revenues of the local government by up to 27 times, and that would in turn increase the autonomy of the prefecture, bring modernization and poverty alleviation to the area

(McDonald 2007:8, Magee 2006). Another major proponent of the NHDP is

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the state-owned Yunnan Huadian Nujiang Hydropower Development

Company, which has been put in charge of the construction (Litzinger 2007).

These two actors work closely together to realize the project.

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which provides indigenous people with the right to free, prior and informed consent regarding projects that affect the territories where they live. This right is one of the principles of the

Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP), a voluntarily standard in the dam industry. As Bosshard (2010) writes, it took the Chinese government some time before it voted in favour of the Declaration, which strengthened the rights of dam-affected people. In the end the Chinese

government voted in favour of the UN declaration, which recognized the right to consent by the indigenous people. In spite of the new regulations, the local people in China are still to a large extent left outside the decision-making process of hydropower development. However, the hydropower project on the Nujiang met strong opposition from environmental non-governmental

organizations (ENGOs), environmentally concerned scientists, as well as from media, the international community, and several members of the State

Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).⁶ These actors formed the Nujiang anti-dam coalition and initiated ‘The Nujiang Campaign’ (Buesgen 2008), also known as the ‘Save the Nu’ campaign (McDonald 2007:75). Their main

concern was conserving China’s remaining, but rapidly deteriorating, natural resources. The Nujiang is one of the last major river ecosystems in China that has not been influenced by hydropower development (Litzinger 2007:287), and the Nujiang Valley is home to many endangered animal and plant species.

In addition to the environmental concerns came the human costs of large dams.

Approximately 36% of the population of Yunnan consists of 25 ethnic minority groups. The lives of the ethnic minorities inhabiting the Nujiang

6 The State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) was changed into Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in 2008 (He et al. 2012:33).

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Valley depend on the river ecosystem (McDonald 2007:16), and construction of hydroelectric dams would require resettlement of approximately 50,000 people and will destroy the unique biodiversity of the area (Yan 2011). Last but not least, the some of the dams would be constructed in the area of ‘The Three Parallel Rivers’ (sanjiang bingliu), a UNESCO natural world heritage site since July 2003 (Litzinger 2007:284). The efforts of ‘The Nujiang Campaign’ to lobby central authorities and organize channels for public

participation in the debate led to the suspension of the construction on April 1, 2004, by Premier Wen Jiabao. The project has already been postponed for almost ten years.

For over a decade the debate around the hydropower project on the Nujiang has been at the centre of attention of scholars concerned with

environmental issues, resource management, and topics related to politics and society in China, such as the role of ENGOs and civil society in China’s decision making process. While the dams on the neighbouring Mekong (Lancang) River in Yunnan province were being actively developed the dams on the Nujiang received much broader domestic and international criticism, which played a role in postponing the project in early 2004. The fact that the construction of the dams has been halted for almost a decade is unprecedented in the history of hydropower development in China and it invokes discussion about such issues as the shift in the state-society relationship in China (see Saich 2004), the rise of social and environmental accountability (see Ma 2012), and the role of environmental non-governmental organizations in China (Beck et al. 2012, McDonald 2007). McDonald (2007) suggests that the rise of Chinese ENGOs and the will of local peoples made it possible to halt

damming of the Nujiang. The author notes that the lobbying power of Chinese ENGOs is still quite limited, however, the ENGOs had an increasingly active role in the public debate on the consequences of dam constructions on the Nujiang, which contributed to the emergence of more proactive environmental protection measures. Although fully understanding the socio-political context

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of hydropower development and the transformations in Chinese society is crucial for creating a holistic perspective on the Nujiang hydropower development, it goes beyond the scope of this thesis.

Magee and Kelley (2009) provide a detailed overview of the

hydropower development plans on the Chinese part of the Nujiang beginning from 1995, and account for the arguments for and against the construction of the dams. They write that the proponents of hydropower development on the Nujiang claim that it could help satisfy the growing demand for energy in the country and provide revenues to the local government, which would benefit Yunnan province in the sense that they would decrease the financial

dependence of Yunnan province, which is currently highly dependent on subsidies from the central government. On the other hand, the considerable human and environmental costs of dam construction raise a great amount of suspicion about the sustainability of the Nujiang project.

In spite of the controversy and suspicion about the NHDP, in Special Column 3 of the 12th five-year plan on energy development under the title

“The focal points in energy resources development during the 12th five-year plan” the Chinese central government orders to focus on beginning the construction of, among others, the Songta dam on the Nujiang, and, deepen verification and orderly start the construction of, among others, the Liuku, Maji, Yabiluo and Saige dams on the mainstream of the Nujiang (SCPRC 2013).

While the construction of the dams has not yet begun and the Nujiang remains free-flowing, some infrastructural work is already being carried out.

Brown and Xu (2010) studied the resettlement of Xiaoshaba village, which was located in the area of the proposed reservoir for the Liuku dam, one of the 13 proposed dams. They found that the construction of the preliminary

infrastructure for the dam had begun without authorization and observed numerous violations of the resettlement regulations during the resettlement process (ibid.:791). Their study shows that the bitter experiences of large dams

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have not led to an improvement in the dam related population resettlement regulations in China. The early character of the Nujiang project allows

conducting different types of cost-benefit analyses, which aim at contributing to more sustainable ways of hydropower development.

2.3 Sustainability analyses of dam-related projects

As seen from the discussion above, hydropower development poses environmental and social challenges. It is propagated by the Chinese

government as a clean source of energy, and is seen as a way of coping with the environmental crisis and developing in a more sustainable way. Sustainable development is a complicated issue, and its definition and implications have been largely debated in scientific literature. One of the more established definitions of sustainable development comes from the UN “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future”, also known as the Brundtland Report (WCED 1987). According to the report, sustainable development can be defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (ibid.: Chapter 2 Paragraph 1). The Brundtland report provides general guidelines for more environmentally friendly ways of development.

More radical ecological critique of development challenges the view that the non-human world can and should be viewed merely as a source for humans’ benefit (Kopnina and Shoreman-Ouimet 2013:2-4). As Kopnina and Shoreman-Ouimet show, the conflict between human interests and ecological values should rather be seen as a conflict between different human interests.

For example, people are interested in both a comfortable life and in clean air, but these can sometimes be contradictory. On the other hand, some

environmental interests, such as energy efficiency, coincide with economic interests. In most cases conflicting economic and environmental interests of the people result in economic interests taking priority over environmental

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interests. The local NLAP government speaks of hydropower development on the Nujiang as a sustainable way of improving the regional economic situation by generating income from electricity, which could be used to implement other developmental programmes. The challenge lies in ensuring that the economic interests of one group of people will not be satisfied at the expense of the interests of a different group. According to Sachs (2012:3), the term

sustainable development should include not only environmental sustainability, but also human well-being and social inclusion. The possibility of improving lives of people and coping with the subsequent challenges is explored in research on ways of exercising sustainability assessments. The next section reviews several approaches to conducting hydropower sustainability analyses.

There are several key international actors in hydropower sector, which are concerned with improving hydropower policy and practice and achieving more sustainable ways of hydropower development. First of all, more

sustainable dam construction, operation and removal practices are promoted in a report issued in 2000 by the World Commission on Dams (WCD). The WCD was an independent commission created in 1998 with the support of the World Bank and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in order to review the developmental effectiveness of dams and develop guidelines for future dam projects. The WCD reviewed experiences of 1000 dams in 79 countries. According to the report, dams have contributed significantly to human development, however, this often came at an “unacceptable and often unnecessary price” paid by the people who were resettled, those communities that lived downstream from the dams, and by the natural environment (IRN 2008a). In order to mitigate the negative consequences of dam construction the WCD presented a new framework for hydropower decision-making. The main principles at the basis of the framework included recognizing the rights of all the parties concerned and assessing the risks of all the parties. Several

governments such as those of Germany, Nepal, South Africa, Sweden and Vietnam, have worked on including the WCD recommendations into their

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national policies. The World Bank and the International Hydropower

Association, while opposing some of the recommendations, have also accepted the main principals developed by the commission. However, the Chinese government has rejected the WCD report’s findings and recommendations (Lefrancois 2014). Conflicts of interests between the different actors

concerned are often the major barrier to implementation of WCD guidelines in different contexts around the world (IRN 2008a).

A second influential actor that sets the target of achieving more

sustainable ways of hydropower development is the International Hydropower Association (IHA). The IHA is the main interest group for the global

hydropower industry. According to their website, their mission is to create and distribute understanding of the role that hydropower plays in renewable energy systems, climate change mitigation strategies and freshwater management (IHA 2013). In 2006 the IHA published the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP), which was revised and expanded in November 2010 following the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum (HSAF).

The forum brought together representatives of governments, scientists,

environmental activists and hydropower sector representatives from developed and developing countries. The HSAP is a tool for measuring and guiding performance in the hydropower sector, and it provides guidelines for an assessment of a dam project on four main stages: early stage, preparation, implementation and operation. It encompasses technical, environmental, social, economic and financial, and integrative aspects of sustainability. It is important to mention that the two parts of the protocol, which deal with the preparation and implementation stages of a dam project, contain the so-called

‘areas of non-consensus’ - a special term used in the protocol to refer to the issues on which individual members of the HSAF had an opinion which was contrary to the majority view. These areas include the topics of project affected communities and livelihoods, resettlement, and indigenous peoples (IHA

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2010). These topics are indicated in the Protocol as the areas for further analysis and dialogue, and are the focus of this thesis.

The third international body that promotes sustainability of hydropower sector is the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The IFC is a member of the World Bank Group, and is the biggest development institution in the world that focuses solely on the private sector in the developing countries (IFC 2013a). The IRN refers to the IFC as the ‘lending arm’ of the World Bank Group. The IFC has been investing in hydropower since 1991, it favours run- of-river dams and aims at ensuring “the best environmental and social

practices for projects” (IFC 2013 b). In 2006 the IFC presented the

performance standards and an overarching policy on environmental and social responsibility. The IFC performance standards cover a wide range of issues including working conditions, community health and safety, involuntarily resettlement and pollution prevention on the projects that seek funding from the IFC or have already received the funding and are under implementation.

The standards have been criticized for the vague language and for leaving important environmental considerations to private sector (IRN 2008b). The performance standards gained importance after they were adopted by many other influential financial institutions as their own environmental and social guidelines for project financing.

The environmental organization International Rivers Network (IRN) analysed and compared the approaches to assessing hydropower projects sustainability by the three actors - the WCD, IHA and IFC. It identified differences in goals and approaches in sustainability analysis by the three actors. First of all, the goals set forth by the IHA and the IFC differ in that the former compares different hydropower projects with the aim of implementing one, and the latter fails to explore the options. In addition to that, both the IFC and the IHA fail to account for alternatives to dams (ibid.). Secondly, there is a big difference in the approaches of the three organizations related to the rights of the affected communities. The WCD guidelines are based on the rights

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approach and require free, prior and informed consent of the affected communities while the IHA and IFC use the word ‘consultation’ instead of

‘consent’, and that indicates that the approval of the communities is desired but not essential (ibid.). Thirdly, the IFC’s Standards are criticised in that they are not specific to the hydropower sector, and therefore, fail to address some of the important environmental and social issues particularly connected with dams. The WCD, on the other hand, analyses the risks involved in various stages of planning and implementing of a hydropower project and accounts for the rights of all the parties concerned. It aims to improve decision-making on hydropower projects and promotes more equitable sharing of the costs and benefits of such projects. Finally, although the IHA sustainability framework is specific to the hydropower sector, its weakest point from the sustainability point of view is that it is designed to ensure that the project will ultimately be implemented. It is also criticized for giving equal importance to all of its 20 indicators, which are scored on a scale from 0 to 5 with the average score becoming the rating of the project. This undermines accounting for the differences in the importance of the indicators. The IRN concludes that sustainability analysis of a dam-related project is best conducted based on the principles put forward by the WCD.

2.4 Impacts of dam construction on humans and the environment

Several researchers have been working on developing tools for

operationalization of the principles of dam-related sustainability guidelines as discussed above. This section reviews several approaches of an integrated assessment of human and environmental consequences of dam construction.

Studies on cost-benefit analysis of hydropower projects by authors as Kittinger et al. (2009), Brown et al. (2009) and Beck et al. (2012) have contributed to a more holistic understanding of how hydropower development influences the natural environment and the wellbeing of people. Kittinger et al. (2009) write

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that the hidden costs of development projects to human health and wellbeing are often left out of the cost-benefit analysis and argue for the necessity of an integrated assessment of human and environmental consequences. They have conducted an integrated assessment of the Three Gorges Dam in order to improve the understanding of the impacts of a ‘large-scale ecosystem

modification’ and the relationship between changes in ecosystems and human wellbeing (ibid.:602). The authors conclude that the health and wellbeing of over 200 million people who live along the Yangtze are directly related to the Three Gorges Dam (ibid.:610). They used the definition of human wellbeing as presented in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) as the basis for their research and came to the conclusion that the Three Gorges Dam has significantly affected the linked socio-ecological system of the Yangtze River basin. They grouped the direct social and ecological impacts of the Three Gorges Dam on human wellbeing, each of them affected by both ecological and social drivers, into four categories: (1) toxicological impacts, (2) shifting infectious disease dynamics, (3) natural hazards, and (4) social health. The authors write that in spite of the fact that debating the benefits of resettlement of so many people in this case is too late, there is still an opportunity to reduce the negative impacts on the resettled people. In addition, studying this project and its consequences can help mitigate the externalities for the future projects (ibid.:608). This study contributes to creating a holistic evaluation of

hydropower development projects with an emphasis on linking ecological change and human wellbeing. This approach relies on the concept of ecosystem services and provides a detailed account of how hydropower development affects human livelihoods through ecosystem degradation.

Brown et al. (2009) introduce the Integrated Dam Assessment Modelling (IDAM), a new tool for a holistic evaluation of the costs and benefits of dam construction from a multidisciplinary perspective. The approach developed by the authors allows to “assign objective metrics and subjective valuations to a range of biophysical, socio-economic and

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geopolitical effects of dam construction and removal”, and is aimed at improving the understanding of dam impacts on humans and ecological systems. The analysis is primarily based on literature, household surveys, hydrologic and GIS analyses, and public participation activities. The tool suggests that decision makers should consider various implications of dam construction simultaneously, and it combines objective measurements and subjective evaluations into a single model. The importance of each impact of dam construction or removal is decided by a particular project’s decision- making team, and that increases its applicability in different contexts. The advantage of the suggested approach lies in that it does not require disciplines to conform to a single framework, but instead it integrates various disciplinary perspectives into a single model. Amongst the disadvantages of the approach are the considerable amount of required data and the inapplicability of some of the impacts in some settings. The authors write that the value of the approach will depend on a balanced treatment of each disciplinary perspective.

Beck et al. (2012) introduce another multidisciplinary approach to conducting hydropower cost-benefit analysis which is based on the concept of ecosystem services. The authors see this as a more empirical approach of accounting for the externalities of dam construction (ibid.:86). They write that dams have “undoubtedly degraded or eliminated many services provided by ecosystems” (ibid.:75). Having studied the literature on hydropower

development in China, the US and South-east Asia, they provide an account of the broad impacts of dam projects on ecosystem services. They reach a general conclusion that in addition to a more holistic cost-benefit analysis, improving hydropower practices requires that dam developers and financiers improve transparency and accountability of existing practices. According to the authors, a comparison of costs and benefits of dam projects in these three regions, which are on different development trajectories, can provide insights into the societal and political challenges to sustainability. The authors establish a relationship between economic development and environmental degradation

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and suggest that their approach helps to frame development paradigms that consider the potentially conflicting roles of policy implementation and

environmental capital. A cost-benefit analysis should reflect the costs of dam projects throughout a dam’s entire lifespan and take into consideration the changing temporal and special contexts. The biggest challenge related to improving cost-benefit analyses is “to provide an explicit link between development and loss of livelihood through degradation of the environment”

(ibid.:86). The authors advocate broader involvement of the affected

individuals into the decision-making process that will ensure more equitable hydropower development practices.

In the studies above the notion of ecosystem services provides a conceptual linkage between the condition of the natural environmental and human wellbeing (Beck et al. 2012:75). Although there have been a number of studies, which quantify the degradation of ecosystem services caused by dams, multiple institutional and economic barriers prevent measures to protect the environment (see Ebisemiju 1993, Brismar 2002, Beck et al. 2012). In addition, it is often hard to empirically measure the cultural and spiritual values of elements of ecosystems, because they have no established markets (Hanley et al. 1998 in Beck et al. 2012:75). The applicability of cost-benefit analyses will depend on developing new ways of measuring the immaterial benefits provided by the natural environment and dealing with the institutional barriers that prevent measures of environmental protection.

Having discussed various ways of conducting cost-benefit analyses of developmental projects related to the use of public natural resources, I will now present some critique of these approaches. Wegner and Pascual (2011) criticise the theoretical validity and empirical applicability of cost-benefit analysis tools for ecosystem services policy evaluation. According to Wegner and Pascual (2011:492), ecosystem service cost-benefit analysis is used for measuring and comparing the economic efficiency of several competing policies or project designs that will impact the services provided by

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ecosystems. This type of analysis uses monetary metric. In such analysis positive impacts on the ecosystems are seen as benefits, and negative impacts are regarded as costs. The measurements, which are obtained in this way, are then summarized in order to calculate the ‘total net benefit’ of each project or policy alternative ‘in terms of net present value (NPV)’. Those policy

alternatives or projects that pass the Kaldor-Hicks compensation test (meaning that NVP > 0, or that the beneficiaries of the project can in theory compensate for the loses of the losers from the policy and would still have net gains after that) are selected. After that the policies are ranked by their NPVs. Based on such an analysis, the policy alternatives or projects with have the highest NVP are considered potentially most beneficial and are suggested for

implementation.

Wegner and Pascual provide an overview of the critique of the

theoretical basis of a cost-benefit approach and argue that when a cost-benefit analysis is used in order to inform policy about public ecosystem services, it often fails to account for certain dimensions of human wellbeing such as psychological health, social integration and socio-cultural identity. Secondly, being based in neoclassical economics, where people’s values are self-

interested, cost-benefit analysis also fails to account for multiple forms of ecosystem values, as articulated by local people. For example, some values are regarded by people as intrinsic values of an entity (for example, of totemic species) and people value them with no relation to personal satisfaction.

Thirdly, ecosystem cost-benefit analysis does not account for the complicated nature of ecosystems, some ecosystem services are fundamental to human wellbeing and there might be no possible trade-offs with other goods or services, thus, economic analysis becomes meaningless. In addition to that, cost-benefit analysis fails to account for the distribution biases of markets, as in such analysis market prices are considered to reflect scarcity of resources and preferences of individuals, and decisions are often biased against the preferences of the wealthier groups. “Budget constraints of the poor may result

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in an underestimation of those ecosystem services that are crucial to the long- term sustainability of their livelihoods” (ibid.:496). Finally, cost-benefit analysis fails to account for the fairness implications of spatio-temporal framing, as ecosystem services are “produced and experienced at different levels, short-term and long-term and site-level and global-level”. The slightest changes in the spatial and temporal framing of the analysis lead to a significant change in the “range of consequences and stakeholders” (ibid.:499).

To sum it up, ecosystem services cost-benefit analysis generates inaccurate estimates that lead to “misguided policy decisions”. The authors, whose works were discussed above, argue for a pluralistic analytical

framework, which can be applied within the specific context in which the decision-making takes place. This framework should include bringing together various groups of stakeholders and leading to an “intense confrontation and difficult choices”. The projects should be evaluated in terms of different objectives, such as poverty alleviation, ecological resilience and psychological health. The task of policy-making based on this type of analysis would require reconciling these diverse interests until consensus emerges and would lead to fairer choices compared to those based on “abstract efficiency calculation” in cost-benefit analyses.

This thesis does not attempt to conduct a sustainability assessment similar to the ones mentioned above, but the analytical framework of the thesis is also based on the principals of ecosystem services, which allows the

findings from this thesis to potentially be used for conducting a sustainability assessment of the Nujiang hydropower development project. The conclusions from the studies above also provide the basis to predict how the NHDP will influence the Nujiang Valley ecosystems and impact human wellbeing.

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3. Analytical framework

This chapter begins by discussing the reasons for the choice of the analytical framework (3.1). The second section of the chapter defines the main analytical concepts employed in the analysis and discusses the analytical framework of ecosystem services contributing to human wellbeing (3.2 and 3.3). The next section of the chapter discusses the capability approach, which puts the findings in this thesis into a broader framework of thought (3.4). The chapter concludes by explaining how the ecosystem services framework and the capability approach complement each other and contribute to generating more grounded and solution-oriented conclusions (3.5).

3.1 Choice of analytical framework

My thesis adopts a human-centred ontological perspective. In other words, the social human being is placed at the centre of the study. I believe that a study of the impact of a developmental project on human wellbeing can be best

performed through analysing the grassroots perspective on the changes introduced by the project to the human-natural environment relationship. The method in this thesis comes from social anthropology. The analysis, however, requires the usage of some concepts from the natural sciences domain, such as ecosystems and human health.

The relationship between human beings and the natural environment can be studied within a range of theoretical frameworks and using multiple

methodological approaches in diverse disciplines. Environmental sociology is one of the disciplines that deal with this issue within sociology, within

economics the relationship between humans and the natural environment is studied in environmental economics, in the domain of political science political ecology studies the relationship between humans and the natural

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environment, and in anthropology environmental anthropology, ecological anthropology, and developmental anthropology are concerned with this issue.

These are only some of the examples of the disciplines concerned with the study of the human - natural environment relationship. There are also ways of looking at this issue from a multi- or an interdisciplinary perspective. Through the course of my study I came to realise that in many instances an

interdisciplinary perspective provides a more holistic understanding of an issue, and I believe that human wellbeing can be best analysed within an interdisciplinary analytical framework. I decided to build my study within the analytical framework similar to the one in the UN Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (2005). The framework brings together the knowledge from disciplines such as anthropology, life sciences, sociology, ecology, political science etc. It was designed for understanding the consequences of ecosystem change for human wellbeing. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) was initiated in 2000 by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a report to the UN General Assembly titled: “We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century”. The Assessment was conducted by four working groups of the UN, and its Secretariat was coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Programme was governed by a multi-stakeholder board, which included representatives of UN agencies, international scientific organizations, national governments, leaders from the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and indigenous peoples. As a result of a long-term interdisciplinary study a report under the title

“Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing. Health Synthesis” was published in 2005, which summarised the major findings of all the working groups involved in the Assessment. The conceptual framework of the Assessment was designed especially for its purposes and focused on the linkages between ecosystems and human wellbeing (MA 2005 b).

The MA framework brings together many disciplines in order to create a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between ecosystem services

Development and Wellbeing: The Relationship between Hydropower Development in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in China and the Wellbeing of the Local Population