China blocks $4bn Xiaonanhai dam development

China's environment ministry has blocked a $3.75bn dam project that would have flooded the last free-flowing section of the middle reaches of the Yangtze river, in a rare victory for environmentalists.

Upriver from the inland port city of Chongqing, the Xiaonanhai dam has been a rallying cause for Chinese environmentalists since now-disgraced politician Bo Xilai redrew the boundaries of a nature reserve to allow its construction.

The segment of waterway to be flooded - theoretically protected since the national nature reserve was established in 2000 - was the final remaining spawning ground for many native river fish. China has seen a decline in its fish species as rampant dam construction has turned its rivers into "cascades", or stagnant reservoirs.

"We environmental NGOs have worked on this for six years. We really welcome the news," said Zhang Boju of Friends of Nature, who led the campaign against the dam. He noted the prohibition came in spite of the construction of roads and preliminary structures for the dam, a tactic often used to pressure regulators into approving such structures.

"But we are still worried," added Mr Zhang. "It is hard to say whether this is a one-off victory or a symbol of things to come."

The decision comes as powerful state-owned dam builders lobby for more projects to be included in next year's five-year plan for the economy, which environmentalists fear could eliminate the few remaining sections of China's rivers that are not yet dammed.

The ban on further construction of the Xiaonanhai dam was not announced formally, but slipped into the approval documents for a different dam. A letter from the Ministry of Environmental Protection to Chinese hydropower developer Three Gorges Corp instead authorised the Wudongde dam, further upstream on the Yangtze's Jinsha river tributary. Construction of the Wudongde dam began last year.

"The project will lead to major changes to the water environment and water ecology as well as the land ecology, causing [an] irreversible impact," the ministry's letter said, calling for mitigating measures.

"The construction of the Wudongde dam will change the hydrology conditions of its downstream sections, blocking migration of fish and exacerbate the risk of extinction of the coreius guichenoti [a type of gudgeon that lives in rapidly flowing fresh water] and other rare fish in the upper stream of the Yangtze."

The Ministry of Environmental Protection declined to comment. Three Gorges Corp could not be reached for comment.

The nature reserve was already much diminished in 2010 when Bo Xilai, then party secretary of Chongqing, redrew its boundaries so that the Xiaonanhai dam could go ahead.

In 2005 it had been reduced to make way for the large Xiluodu and Xiangjiaba dams, China's second and third-largest, in Yunnan province.

Additional reporting by Owen Guo

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