The Bakun Dam - Why It Is Wrong

It has been more than 600 days since the Baram Dam Blockade is set up. I have written a post about the negative impact due to the construction of dam last year (What Is Wrong With Mega Dam - The Baram Dam Project) after attending a charity lunch aimed to raise fund for the protest towards the construction of Baram Dam in Sarawak. For this semester I need to do an oral presentation on any topic related to my current field which is Environmental Studies during my English class (which is compulsory for each and everyone in UPM ugh, well I didn't say I dislike it). So I think this is a good time for me to bring up this issue again through direct transfer of message in the class. And I don't like giving speech, I just don't.

The beautiful view on Bakun Dam which hides the ugliness under the water.
(photo taken from Mohd Hisyamudin's blog)

We are required to prepare a audience analysis questionaire to see how much the audience knows about the topic you are going to talk about. Well, everyone knows what a dam is but mostly not sure whether a dam is beneficial overall or not. I am glad that they chose 'not sure' instead of a yes or no because I believe it sparkled some thoughts inside them, although it might last just for awhile. The main purpose of my speech is, again, to inform my audience the negative impact of dam construction in Malaysia in terms of environment and also demography of indigenous people. This time I am going to focus on just one single dam in Malaysia as the case study so that people can see it more clearly and feel it more deeply because it happens in our country, on fellow Malaysians even though the dam is located across the sea in Sarawak!

What Is Wrong with Mega Dams? - The Baram Dam Project

When we talk about renewable energy, it is about the production of electricity using renewable resources such as sun light and wind, which won't be depleted. Some people might suggest hydroelectricity which is obtained through the turning of turbines using the gushing of water from a higher elevation (potential energy to mechanical energy to electrical energy) which does not use up any resource as well. The most renowned hydroelectrical dam in China - Three Gorges Dam at Yangtze River which covers an area of 632 square kilometres generates a total of 84 TeraWatts-hours of electricity each year (a typical light bulb requires only 60 Watts to light up).  

The Bakun Dam.
(photo taken from the Sarawak Report website)