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The Story of the Dahe Dam by Ying Xing (Translation edited by Kelly Haggart).
A fascinating, detailed account of the years-long struggle for redress pursued by thousands of people who were plunged deeper into poverty by the construction of the Dahe dam. Many of the farmers uprooted for that dam, built 30 years ago on a Yangtze tributary in what is now Chongqing municipality, are being moved again for the Three Gorges project. "To learn more about what goes on behind the scenes in China, this book about the ruinous consequences of one small dam is an excellent place to start," Dai Qing writes in her introduction to the English translation of this important work by sociologist Ying Xing. The original Chinese version of the book, published under the title Dahe yimin shangfangde gushi (A Tale of Migrants Displaced by the Dahe Dam), was banned in China in 2002, but is available on Three Gorges Probe's Chinese site. The on-line publication and translation of this book have been made possible by the Open Society Institute.
Read it online.
The River Dragon Has Come! The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China's Yangtze River and its People by Dai Qing (Edited by John G. Thibodeau and Philip B. Williams).
The River Dragon Has Come! is another monumental work by the courageous Chinese writer Dai Qing. It tells the story of how government officials and dam boosters are manipulating common sense, economics, and politics to promote the world's largest dam project, the Three Gorges dam. A follow-up to 1994's ground-breaking Yangtze! Yangtze!
To order by e-mail JerryWagner@nextcity.com ($23.95, 240 pages, softcover, 1998).
To order with paypal CDN: $23.95
Yangtze! Yangtze! by Dai Qing (Edited by Probe International's Patricia Adams and John G. Thibodeau).
An extraordinary collection of interviews, essays, and statements by Chinese scientists, journalists, and intellectuals opposed to the massive Three Gorges dam on China's Yangtze River. Originally published in 1989 as the democracy movement was gathering momentum, Yangtze! Yangtze! is credited with pressuring the State Council to postpone the dam, and inspired the democracy movement by striking an unprecedented blow at powerful state authorities promoting the dam. This pioneering critique is now available in English, expanded to include post-Tiananmen events.
Read it online.To order by e-mail JerryWagner@nextcity.com ($19.95, 295 pages, softcover, 1994).
To order with paypal CDN: $19.95
Damming the Three Gorges: What Dam Builders Don't Want You to Know. (Edited by Probe International's Margaret Barber and Gráinne Ryder) . Second edition -- updated and expanded.
A comprehensive critique of the Three Gorges Water Control Project Feasibility Study. Nine independent experts express their professional outrage at a Canadian government-financed study that recommends building the Three Gorges dam in China, which would require the forcible relocation of one million people and the destruction of one of the world's most magnificent canyons. The findings prompted Probe International to file a formal complaint with the professional engineering associations against Canadian engineering firms for professional misconduct, negligence, and incompetence.
Read it onlineTo order by e-mail JerryWagner@nextcity.com ($15.95, 1993, 183 pages, softcover).
To order with paypal CDN: $15.95
Mao's War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China by Judith Shapiro Judith Shapiro, in clear and compelling prose, relates the great, untold story of the devastating impact of Chinese politics on China’s environment during the Mao years. Maoist China provides an example of extreme human interference in the natural world in an era in which human relationships were also unusually distorted. Under Mao, the traditional Chinese ideal of ‘harmony between heaven and humans’ was abrogated in favor of Mao’s insistence that ‘People Will Conquer Nature’. Mao and the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘war’ to bend the physical world to human will often had disastrous consequences both for human beings and the natural environment. Mao’s War Against Nature argues that the abuse of people and the abuse of nature are often linked. Shapiro’s account, told in part through the voices of average Chinese citizens and officials who lived through and participated in some of the destructive campaigns, is both eye-opening and heartbreaking.
The Birds of Heaven by Peter Matthiessen
Respected American writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen warns in The Birds of Heaven that downstream environmental impacts of the Three Gorges dam could "fatally degrade" an important wintering ground for the world's most endangered crane species. A cluster of small lakes on the northwest edge of Poyang Lake - 1,000 km from the dam site, in Jiangxi province - were discovered in recent years to be the winter destination of "the last significant flock of the Siberian crane: in effect, 99 per cent of all Grus leucogeranus left on earth," Matthiessen writes. But now, he warns, the precious Poyang ecosystem may be destroyed by the massive dam upriver on the Yangtze. "Manipulation of the water flow by the Three Gorges dam will permanently alter the hydrology of the Poyang lakes - a system already severely damaged by watershed and wetland degradation," he writes. Matthiessen says the dam could also slow the formation of new delta land through sedimentation in the Yangcheng Nature Reserve further downstream in Jiangsu province. In winter, this area now provides "good habitat for five to seven hundred red-crowned cranes, the largest population of Grus japonensis anywhere on earth," he writes. Matthiesen spent much of the past decade travelling across five continents to visit the breeding and wintering grounds of all of the 15 crane species. His book is exquisitely illustrated with life-like drawings and paintings of cranes by the acclaimed Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman.
"Dam could imperil endangered-crane habitat, author warns," Three Gorges Probe review Feb. 20, 2002