KUCHING: Activists opposing the construction of mega hydroelectric dams in Sarawak believe Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Adenan is rethinking the policy to build a dozen or so of such dams.

PKR Sarawak vice-chairman See Chee How said he believes there is now a “serious rethinking” of the policy following Adenan’s request for case studies of the state’s proposed mega dam projects made by the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (Rael) of the University of California in Berkeley.

He had also personally accepted the more than 8,000 signatures of people, who opposed the construction of the dam on the Baram River, collected by non-governmental organisation Save Rivers Sarawak in a signature campaign that started last year.

The administration of Adenan’s predecessor, Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud, had refused to accept the signatures during his tenure.

Adenan accepted the signatures after he was widely criticised for only listening to Baram community leaders and not the people who would be affected by the Baram dam in a meeting with Orang Ulu leaders on the proposed dam in Miri last May.

It was later claimed that some of the community leaders he met were not from Baram but from unaffected areas like Bario and Belaga.

After the meeting, Adenan announced that the state government would proceed with the construction of the RM4 billion dam in northern Sarawak as he said he had secured the support of the “majority of the community leaders in Baram”.

Opponents of the dams were buoyed when Adenan on Saturday agreed to an informal meeting with the PKR lawmaker, the director of Rael, Prof Daniel Kammen, an expert on micro hydro projects in Borneo, Gabriel Wynn of Green Empowerment and Peter Kallang, chairman of Save Rivers, to hear Rael’s findings of studies of clean energy options, and to hear from Green Empowerment the performance of its mini-grids.

Kallang, who described the meeting as “a very cordial and friendly discussion”, said Adenan had told them “to show to me the reality”.

“He asked for the studies,” Kallang said. Kammen said the papers would be handed over to him next week.

Kallang added that the chief minister at the meeting had said his goal was to have the thousands of rural villages “to have light”.

Rael has conducted three studies on Sarawak’s mega hydroelectric dams and Kammen said Rael would be sending a researcher to the state next week to conduct more studies on the impact of these large dams on the community.

Kallang said the chief minister would visit Baram after Hari Raya to hear the people’s views of the proposed dam. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on June 29, 2015.