China's Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) suspended approval for dams on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River last week, citing two of China's largest hydropower companies for illegally commencing construction on dam projects near Lijiang, according to a China Daily report.

According to the MEP, in January Huadian Power and Huaneng Power illegally blocked the middle reaches of the Jinsha River, as the upper reaches of the Yangtze are known, for the Ludila and Longkaikou dams, respectively.

MEP spokesman Tao Detian said that the two companies had failed to conduct environmental impact assessments, adding that both power producers had been ordered to cease building the dams immediately.

Some construction of the eight planned dams on the Jinsha – with a total projected cost of 200 billion yuan (US$29.3 billion) – may have been halted temporarily, but there is no indication that the dams have been permanently scrapped.

"For the approved projects, supplementary environmental reviews will be needed," Tao said.

If completed, the total installed capacity of the eight dams on the Jinsha would reach 20.59 gigawatts, just short of the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam further downstream. Of the eight dams, a dam at Jin'anqiao is already under construction, and the environmental impact assessment for a dam at Ahai was approved by MEP earlier this year.

Passing through Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, the 2,300 kilometer Jinsha River flows through areas rich in biodiversity and inhabited by ethnic minority groups. It is also the source of much of the Yangtze's fish life, which would be greatly diminished if the planned dams were built.

This is not the first time that the central government has stopped proposed work on damming the Jinsha. At the end of 2007, a plan to dam and fill Tiger Leaping Gorge was scrapped after much public debate, a development which many consider to be the first major victory for China's nascent environmental movement.

Kunming resident Colin Flahive (pictured above, right) is on his motorcycle traveling across northwestern Yunnan and southwestern Sichuan, sending occasional dispatches to GoKunming from the road. In today's post, Flahive searches for a road less traveled between Lijiang and Lugu Lake on the Yunnan-Sichuan border.

The number of road projects that the Yunnan government has successfully undertaken over the past ten years is enough to make any motorcycle enthusiast want to bungee a tent to the back of their bike, saddle up, shift out of neutral and throttle straight out of town.

These days, one can buy a road map in just about any decent book store, pick out the smallest roads in any part of the country that piques one's interest, and chances are they're primed for riding.

For our current journey, we wanted to find an alternate route from Lijiang to Lugu Lake as far from the buses and trucks as possible. From there we hoped to pass along the Litang River in western Sichuan to Litang (理塘), the highest town in China at 4,014 meters - 400 meters higher than Lhasa.

We started out from Lijiang by skirting the foothills of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towards the eastern passage of Tiger Leaping Gorge. We then worked our way eastward with hopes of finding a bridge that could take us across the Jinsha River (金沙江), better known as the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

Stopping often to ask locals about the roads and the bridge, our inquiries were always met with "That road doesn't exist" or "There's no bridge there, you have to go back to Lijiang."

With road construction moving at such a swift pace in Yunnan, locals can be forgiven for not knowing their own neighborhoods. And truth be told, the advantage of riding an off-road motorcycle is that even when there is no road, you can make your own.

For a few hours, we were blessed with beautiful tarmac surfaces, but as the road began to break up into gravel and dirt, our hopes for a bridge and getting to Lugu began to dim. Then, a massive construction site appeared over the top of the next pass.

Under the haze of dust and heavy machinery was the Jinsha River; though hardly reminiscent of the magnificent Jinsha I'd seen on trips past. It was bruised, bulldozed and the color of pea soup. Dam construction was well under way along this stretch of the Jinsha. It was hardly a pleasant sight, but the construction zone had provided a temporary bridge that we were able to cross and continue our journey.

With that behind us, we were free to cruise along the stunning high-mountain roads through golden rice terraces and smiling Yi minority villages. These are the kind of places and people that remind you why you fell in love with China in the first place.

We eventually climbed up a high mountain pass that descended upon Lugu Lake. The full moon rising over its rippling waters accentuated the natural beauty of the place. The Old Tree Cafe on the western shore of the lake – run by a friendly young woman from Lanzhou – welcomed us and fed us pasta and drinks as we pondered the next leg of our journey into western Sichuan.

GoKunming thanks Colin Flahive for his contribution - if you have a story you'd like to share with GoKunming readers, please contact us via our contact form.

Editor's note: GoKunming is publishing photos from the collection of Auguste François (1857-1935), who served as French consul in south China between 1896 and 1904, during which he spent several years in Kunming. The photos have been provided by Kunming resident and private collector Yin Xiaojun (殷晓俊). GoKunming thanks Yin Xiaojun for providing us a glimpse of Yunnan at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Year: 1900
Subject: Refugees from Sichuan
Location: Unknown location in Kunming

Background:

In general, life in southwest China is much less arduous than it was a century ago, but natural disasters can still strike with little notice - as this year has demonstrated to catastrophic effect. This year southwest China has experienced a massive winter storm, a catastrophic earthquake near Wenchuan in Sichuan, and the more recent tremor that destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes in Sichuan and Yunnan.

More than a hundred years ago, Auguste François bore witness to the tragedy of the flooding of Luzhou in Sichuan. The people in the photo above are refugees from the flooding of the Jinsha River, which eventually becomes the Yangtze River.

That these refugees even made it to Yunnan is little short of a miracle. These seven extremely poor people had barely enough clothing to cover themselves, and included two elderly and one child in their ranks.

Moreover, some of the refugees are missing toes, likely due to leprosy (麻风病), and the child's belly is bloated from undernourishment. The sad scene is an unforgettable illustration of the Chinese phrase yi bu bi ti (衣不蔽体) or "not enough clothing to cover oneself".

Related articles:

Auguste François, Yin Xiaojun and Kunming at the end of the Qing Dynasty

Relocated pandas suffering from post-earthquake stress

Yunnan contributing to earthquake recovery effort

UK newspaper The Guardian is reporting that the controversial plan to dam Yunnan's Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡) has been scrapped.

The sparing of the gorge and its 100,000 inhabitants – who would have been forced to relocate to much less hospitable terrain – may be the biggest win to date for mainland environmentalists. The victory may only be a pyrrhic one, as other portions of the Yangtze River's upper reaches, known in Yunnan as the Jinsha River (金沙江) are under consideration for hydropower projects.

Tiger Leaping Gorge is where a roughly 15-kilometer stretch of the Jinsha runs between 5,596-meter Yulong Snow Mountain (玉龙雪山) and 5,396-meter Haba Snow Mountain (哈巴雪山). The gorge features 2,000-meter cliffs leading above intense rapids that are not considered navigable.

The area has traditionally been home to more than 100,000 residents, most of whom are from the Naxi ethnic minority. Since opening to foreign tourists in 1993, the gorge has seen a steady increase in tourist visits, which has led to road improvements and construction of several guesthouses along the 'high road' above the river.

The decision to spare the gorge from being dammed and filled will likely benefit tourism to the area, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Three Parallel Rivers Protected Areas. However it is unlikely to be the end of new hydropower projects, as it is thought that damming the Jinsha could prevent the flow of silt downstream to the Three Gorges Dam.

Silt is considered a threat to the navigability of the Yangtze, which is expected to be able to handle increasing levels of containerized sea-going barge traffic as far west as Chongqing in the coming years.

Some officials are also proponents of using the damming of the Jinsha to flush out the pollution that has accumulated in Kunming's Dianchi Lake, which is one of China's largest and most polluted freshwater lakes. China's second-largest hydropower project at Xiluodu began construction in November of last year.

Related Articles:

Will we lose Tiger Leaping Gorge?

UNESCO to de-list Yunnan heritage site?

China's second-largest hydropower project enters construction phase

Last Thursday the flow of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River was blocked in order to build China's second-largest hydropower project, according to local media reports. The damming of the Jinsha River, as the Yangtze is known in Sichuan and Yunnan, will pave the way for construction of the Xiluodu Power Station (溪洛渡电站), which is scheduled for completion by 2015.

The 50 billion yuan (US$6.74 billion) project will have an installed capacity of 12.6 GW, making it the second-largest hydropower station in China after the 18.2 GW Three Gorges Dam. The Xiluodu project is located on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan.

Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation, the state-owned company charged with the Xiluodu project, was ordered by China's State Environmental Protection Agency in 2005 to halt work on the dam until it completed and submitted an environmental impact assessment. Now that the river's flow is blocked, the construction phase of the project is set to begin.

Southwest China's numerous rivers are increasingly being harnessed to quench the country's growing thirst for electricity - much to the chagrin of domestic and international groups concerned with the impact of dams upon the environment, archeological sites and residents displaced by such projects. The Jinsha River is also due to have another hydropower station - Xiangjiaba - begin operations in 2015 with an installed capacity of 6 GW.

Image: Xinhua News