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dam-l can. expert on ecological impacts of TGP etc



Forwarded from the three gorges mailing list run by IRN.
This artcle is from the South China Morning Post.

-Dianne

Forwarded message:
From owner-irn-three-gorges@igc.org  Thu Oct 14 13:47:34 1999
From: Doris Shen <threegorges@irn.org>
Sender: owner-irn-three-gorges@igc.org
Subject: Expert warns of ecological doom (SCMP)
To: irn-three-gorges@igc.org

Thursday, October 14, 1999

Expert warns of ecological doom

CHOW CHUNG-YAN

The mainland faces an ecological catastrophe if the authorities continue
to ignore environmental protection, an expert warned yesterday.

Professor Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba in Canada, said blind
economic development at the environment's expense would cause China's
ecology to collapse.

China would face the problems of insufficient food supply, energy
shortages and frequent natural disasters if the Government did not act
soon, he said in Hong Kong.

"China is losing some of its best farmland to industrial development and
that can be a very serious problem," said Professor Smil, 56, author of
several books on the mainland environment and an editorial board member of
the ecology magazine China Quarterly.

Unlike South Korea or Taiwan, the mainland could not rely on importing
food from other countries, given the size of its population, he said. In
pursuing high economic growth, the Government had drastically raised its
energy consumption, which could trigger further problems.

"In the past, China promoted energy conservation because of shortages," he
said.

"Now this policy has been abandoned and some officials think that by
raising the power supply they can do without conservation."

He called the Three Gorges Dam an "ecological disaster".
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Published in the South China Morning Post.  Copyright © 1999.  All rights
reserved.