Tell us what topics you're interested in and we'll send you automated updates whenever related articles are posted.
Across the developing world, more than 2 billion people lack access to electricity. As countries seek solutions to soaring energy demands, many are rapidly building hydropower dams. In Central America, more 390 large hydropower dams are planned or under construction, along with more than 40 proposed dams in the Yangtze River basin in China, 270 in Ontario, Canada, 200 in Brazil and hundreds more in other countries.
Dams generate needed electric power and economic opportunities. Yet they also often have profound human and ecological consequences. The 375-mile reservoir created by the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, for example, has displaced more than 1 million people and submerged hundreds of thousands of acres of land.
Overall, dams hinder natural processes such as seasonal flooding and fish migration and divert flows from where they once benefited wildlife and humans.
What The Nature Conservancy is Doing.
The Conservancy is working with governments, multi-lateral lending institutions and energy companies around the world to find ways to generate electricity from hydropower dams in a more sustainable manner. The work begins by helping to determine the environmental flows needed to sustain river ecosystems. Next, Conservancy scientists work with dam designers and operators to locate, design and operate dams in ways that protect necessary environmental flow regimes and river species.
The Conservancy is investing in key field projects for the purpose of demonstrating conservation approaches and tools that can be adopted far more broadly. Our approach is to demonstrate at multiple sites around the globe ways to strike a balance for people and nature, and then leveraging lessons, ideas and expertise to still more places. The aim is to leverage action at specific sites into highly effective policy initiatives in the United States and across the globe.
Action starts when people talk.In the midst of the struggle to balance growing energy demands with impacts on humans and nature, there are reasons for hope and things we can do as individuals. First, start a conversation about the issue with friends, family and colleagues. Take a look at our Conversation Starters related to habitat restoration for relevant and compelling facts. And, learn more about our work by visiting related projects on the Conservancy’s web site, nature.org.
