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a US social anthropologist and expert on dams and relocations, who concluded in the New York Times last year that “NT2 confirms my longstanding suspicion that the task of building a large dam is too damaging to priceless natural resources”.Conservation groups monitoring dam development criticize the project as failing to alleviate poverty while being detrimental to the ecology and natural resources local villagers needed to make a living.“What amazes me is that the whole concession of Nam Thuen 2 Dam is 25 years and the construction lasted five years but the compensation process lasted for three years and later was terminated because they say it ran out of money,” said Bruce Shoemaker, an independent researcher writing a book about the impact of dams in Laos. “We calculated the whole life of the project and found the12 Elite+money they spent on compensation less than $5 per affected villager per year. When you look at the revenue the government gets from selling electricity, the compensation to affected villagers is minuscule.”Mr Shoemaker was speaking at “International Financing of Dams in the Mekong”, a forum at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in early October. Other speakers included Witoon Permpongsacharoen, director of the Mekong Energy and Ecology Network, a Bangkok-based conservation group that monitors dam development on the Mekong, and Tanya Lee, programme coordinator at International Rivers, a conservation group monitoring river ecology. Representatives from dam proponents and developers, and financing agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, were invited but declined to join the forum.The talk put the spotlight on NT2, which has been hailed as a model of sustainable development and poverty reduction. Hydroelectric power was classed as clean energy during COP 21, the world climate change summit in Paris in December.Ms Lee said the developers failed to create a sustainable livelihood for villagers relocated from the dam site. Around 6,200 indigenous people formerly living on the Nakai Plateau, now inundated by the reservoir, found their new land arid and unfit for farming, and instead turned to illegal logging and poaching in protected forests. More than 110,000 people living on the Xe Bang Fai have seen great reductions in fish numbers, flooding of riverbanks and water quality problems. The reservoir has also opened up access to the area, exacerbating logging and poaching.Projects like the NT2 are not a