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A Report by The CornerHouse. Chris Lang, Nick Hildyard, Kate Geary, Matthew Grainger. Published by The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.
European dam builders, suppliers and consultants continue to promote and export their technologies to the South. The industry projects itself as experts in benign development and providers of economic prosperity, implying that its work has been tested and perfected at home.
However, European campaigners have waged a long struggle against the same industry. Our campaigns have catalysed legislation that bans the building of new large dams in several European countries but this has been won only after the loss of most of the free-flowing rivers in Europe. Yet today, when the Northern dam industry pushes its technologies onto the South, it ignores, misrepresents or downplays many of the negative environmental, social and economic impacts of large dams which have discredited the industry in Europe.
Southern campaigners fighting battles on issues similar to those faced in the North lack a consolidated source of information from Europe which would help them challenge European dam builders and expose the double standards that they apply at home and in the South.
The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) co-operates with a large number of NGOs in the South to promote information exchange and joint campaigning on issues such as forests, agriculture, international trade and hydropower.
SSNC has therefore commissioned The Corner-House to undertake the present study, "Dams Incorporated". The study presents " for the first time in one document " the track record of the major European dam building companies. Our hope is that it will serve as a useful tool for NGOs campaigning all over the world against unsustainable large dams.
Alhough the SSNC has commissioned and published the study, and supports its main conclusions, the authors are responsible for the detailed facts and views presented in the report.
Dams incorporated. The record of Twelve European Dam building Companies