BEIJING (IPS) - As the last loads of concrete are poured into the wall of the world's largest dam and the waters behind rise, the long battle against the Three Gorges Dam -- spanning generations of Chinese leaders -- is considered lost. 

   But green activists here say the completion of the huge reservoir is only the beginning of an even harder fight to preserve the country's last virgin rivers and dwindling water resources. 

   "As we plan to triple our hydropower capacity from 2004 to 2020, it is crucial to decide future dams through a more open and participatory process so as to bring competing interests into consideration," says Ma Jun, an independent environmental consultant and author of the tome, ‘China's Water Crisis'. 

   Consultation was absent from the approval debate for the Three Gorges dam. Since construction began 15 years ago in Hubei province, more than a million people have been displaced from areas submerged by the huge reservoir that was created behind the wall of the dam. An additional 80,000 will have to be relocated in the next few months. 

   Environmentalists have warned that the backing of water behind the 2.3 km long dam could become a giant waste-collection pool for the city of Chongqing, about 400 km upstream. According to reports, numerous areas of historical and cultural interest have all been flooded. 

   "The environmental and social impact of the Three Gorges Dam is publicly acknowledged and much of it has to be yet properly mitigated," says Ma Jun. "But we would rather focus our efforts on fighting follow-up projects such as the dams on the Jinsha River". 

   Four megadams are designed to be built along the Jinsha River - a tributary of the mighty Yangtze, in part to reduce the silt pressures on the Three Gorges dam. 

   Despite a wave of rural protests, construction of the Xiluodu dam, the country's second-largest hydroelectric dam on lower Jinsha, has already begun. Three other dams are in the exploration stage, including one on the scenical Tiger Leaping Gorge on upper Jinsha, one of the world's deepest canyons. If built, the dam would affect up to 100,000 people. 

   But the Jinsha River is not alone. The government has also announced plans to dam the Nu River that flows from the country's remote southwest into Southeast Asia where it is known as the Salween. 

   An initial proposal of 13-dam cascade on the Nu is projected to generate 4,000 more Mw of electricity a year than Three Gorges. When completed in 2008, the dam will produce some 18,000 Mw -- enough to supply an industrial powerhouse like the coastal hub of Shanghai. 

   China's energy consumption has soared in recent years amid economic growth that last year neared 10 percent. Researchers say the country simply must boost its energy-generation capacity if it wants to continue powering its high economic growth. 

   China believes hydropower energy to be a cleaner alternative for its energy shortages and its officials are eyeing the last untapped river resources in southwestern China. After the Jinsha and Nu rivers, next on the board is the virgin Brahmaputra in Tibet. Experts reckon that only a quarter of China's hydropower has yet been tapped. 

   Yet, the costs may outweigh the benefits. South-western China, where all the three great Asian rivers, the Mekong, the Salween and the Jinsha, start, is one of the world's most biologically diverse areas, home to half of China's animal species and a quarter of its plant species. 

   The area, named the Three Parallel Rivers, is recognised by the UNESCO as a world heritage site. Whatever portions of this ecosystem that the dams don't submerge are certain to be disrupted in potentially disastrous ways. 

   A more immediate concern is the immense number of people who will need to be resettled when reservoirs inundate the region's densely populated valleys. 

   Since the communist takeover in 1949, 16 million people in China have been displaced by reservoirs. Some 10 million of them still live in poverty. At Tiger Leaping Gorge, where a mere 80,000 residents will have to be relocated, people fear that they will be ordered to move up the steep mountainsides to open marginal land at 1,800 to 2,700 metres. 

   But just as the country's energy officials' ambitions have soared, the drive to dam China's last pristine rivers has generated greater environmental sensitivity among the public. Vocal indigenous environmental groups, like the Green Watershed based in the southwestern Yunnan province have emerged, waging a seemingly successful battle to protect the Nu River and the Tiger Leaping Gorge. 

   Following a nationwide campaign of opposition organised by green groups in 2004, Premier Wen Jiabao called for a temporary halt to plans for a cascade of 13 dams on the Nu River, and requested a survey on the environmental and social impact of the dams. 

   The results of the survey have been kept secret but reports in the Hong Kong media have said the review has recommended a scaled-down plan of only four dams along the Nu River. 

   Environmentalists have called on the government to comply with a 2003 law on environmental impact assessment, which requires for public participation in the review and planning of major development projects. 

   They fear that, if built, the four dams would prove the opening for the whole cascade to be completed, much as the completion of Three Gorges has necessitated the building of more and more dams upstream. 

   "The Three Gorges Dam represents the completion of a long-term political dream for Chinese leadership," says Yu Xiaogang, the founder and director of Green Watershed in Yunnan province. "But man conquering the nature is no longer the call of the day. On the contrary, the new thinking about sustainable development is about how to preserve nature." 

   The government recently called for more balanced development, even proposing a "green index" to measure growth. Indeed, Premier Wen Jiabao has declared that he wants to see more "scientific development" in China's approach to its environmental problems. 

   Green activists insist there are alternative ways of generating electricity that would be more cost effective. Despite its mammoth size and 24 billion U.S. dollar price tag, Three Gorges would generate only four percent of China's electricity, according to Cao Guangjing, the dam-building company's deputy manager. 

   The 11th five-year plan (2006-2010), approved by the National People's Congress in March, calls for an improved use of energy and natural resources. Energy per unit of GDP must be reduced by 20 percent from 2005, the plan said. 

   "If we can achieve this national goal for efficiency, imagine how many Three Gorges dams can be spared," says Yu Xiaogang. "Millions of money and the livelihoods of millions of displaced people could be saved if we learn how to use power more efficiently." (END/2006)