IRN: River Revival - July 1998 International Dam Decommissioning Strategy Workshop
July 1998
International Strategy Workshop & the formation of Living Rivers
July 1998
International Dam Decommissioning Strategy Workshop
Walker Creek Ranch, CA
July 23-25, 1998
In late July 1998, IRN hosted the first International Dam
Decommissioning Strategy Workshop for activist leaders working on
dam decommissioning and removal. What follows will give you
additional insight into how the workshop came about and what the
outcomes have been. For more information on the workshop
participants, see the organizations
campaigning on decommissioning.
Background
The idea for this workshop, which took place here in Northern
California, emerged in response to the growing number of dam
decommissioning campaigns springing up around the world. Many of
IRNs colleagues, both in the US and abroad, expressed
interest in forming an informal network of organizations involved
in dam removal in order for groups to more effectively share
information, learn from each others experience, and build
international support for river restoration. The workshop was
thus intended as an opportunity to lay the foundation for such a
network.
In recent years IRN has started to see our principal strategy
begin to shift from being primarily on the defensive - stopping
the construction of big dams - to one that is on the offensive,
advocating the restoration of river systems and the
rehabilitation of communities whose lives have been degraded by
past projects. To further this evolving strategy, IRN saw a
potential useful role as facilitating and supporting
non-governmental organization (NGO) activities directed at
decommissioning dams. IRNs institutional interest in
organizing this decommissioning workshop was to better understand
how we could do this.
The Need for an International Dam Decommissioning Network
As the number of decommissioning campaigns has grown, so too
has the need for examples "successes" to point
to promote dam removal as a viable form of restoration, as well
as "failures" to learn from. What did not yet exist
before the July workshop was an efficient mechanism by which the
international community interested in decommissioning could
effectively share this information. Yet, increasingly over the
last few years, groups involved in individual campaigns had been
questioning what examples existed, and to what extent they might
be part of a larger international movement to correct the
mistakes of the past. Over the last decade, anti-dam activists
have mobilized a powerful global force that is not only stopping
dams, but successfully challenging development policy in many
countries. It seemed the natural evolution of this movement to
use the momentum it has gained to assist in the launching of a
global campaign to begin bringing dams down.
Groups in some parts of the world are particularly interested
in decommissioning efforts in the US. The US role is uniquely
important as the act of challenging the inevitability of dams has
had a significant positive impact in other countries. The US
dam-building era has been used by the dam-building lobby as a
model to justify hundreds of similar destructive projects on
rivers from Brazil to China. US dam decommissioning campaigns
have encouraged similar activities among dam-fighting NGOs in
other countries. These groups requested IRN to provide
information and contacts on US dam decommissioning campaigns. The
most effective means of doing so, from IRNs experience, was
to promote cooperation between groups interested in dam removal
through formation of an international network on this issue.
Workshop Outcomes: Living Rivers
International Coalition and the Role of IRN
So for three days, activists from seven countries came
together to discuss these challenges and opportunities for river
restoration through dam decommissioning. They agreed to form
"Living Rivers: the International Coalition for the
Restoration of Rivers and Communities Affected by Dams," as
the seed for growing a global movement on these issues. IRN's
River Revival project is working to help service and bu ild this
coalition. Click here to learn more about
how you can get involved and join the Revival.
For further
information, please contact:
Elizabeth Brink
E-mail: riverrevival@irn.org
Phone: +510.848.1155
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