Stop the Lower Yarlung Tsangpo Hydropower Project
The Lower Yarlung Tsangpo Hydropower Project will cause irreparable damage to a world heritage site and must be stopped immediately.
By Probe International
A transboundary mega-dam planned for the Lower Yarlung Tsangpo region threatens to wreak havoc on the world’s deepest and longest canyon—a rare and invaluable heritage site, and home to more than half of the world’s known species.
The potential sacrifice of the canyon to a hydropower project that is not even needed, is a loss comparable to the bombing of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban and the endangerment of Egypt’s Abu Simbel temples for the construction of the Aswan High Dam, warns a new report by the renowned German-based hydrology expert Wang Weiluo.
Similar to the rock-cut temples of Abu Simbel on the western bank of Lake Nasser (built in 13th-century BCE) and the monumental 6th-century Buddhist statues in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley, the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon is a site of immeasurable ecological and cultural value. Wang argues the Canyon meets all four natural heritage criteria and several cultural heritage criteria set by UNESCO.
The plan itself, set forth by the Chinese government, would see the construction of a hydropower giant three times the size of the Three Gorges Dam and will involve either diverting the Yarlung Tsangpo River (aka Yarlung Zangbo) through massive tunnels or via a series of mega-dams, both of which would devastate the canyon’s ecosystem. Despite claims of adequate safety and environmental measures, no detailed construction plans or impact assessments have yet been released.
Meanwhile, history has returned full circle with the proposed Yarlung Tsangpo hydropower project, says Wang, to the very origins of global heritage protection efforts. This fascinating overview of the events that led to heritage protection for sites of irreplaceable value to the world, underscores the urgency of halting a project that Wang has argued, elsewhere, primarily serves the pursuit of global hydropower dominance by China’s Communist Party. An ambition driven, not by energy demand or conservation, but “extreme nationalism.”
This report is available via the link below in a PDF format:
https://probemedia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/WW_Lower_Yarlung_Tsangpo_Project.pdf
Probe International is an independent think tank in Canada and around the world.
Image created by Generative AI.