The cost of non-co-operation: th

The Mekong River Commission today begins a two-day meeting in Laos, to deliberate over yet another dam and the future of the river.

• The Mekong River 湄公河
• deliberate 深思熟虑；仔细考虑；反复思考
• Laos 老挝

The 4,350km (2,700-mile) Mekong runs through China, Myanmar【缅甸】, Laos【老挝】, Thailand【泰国】, Cambodia【柬埔寨】 and Vietnam【越南】, and provides water for some 70m people.

The biodiversity of its basin is second only to that of the Amazon.

• biodiversity 生物多样性（大量各种生物的共存以维持生态环境平衡）
• second only to 仅次于

The meeting comes as the environmental costs of a dam-building boom, overfishing and sand mining are piling up.

Last year, the river’s water levels dropped to a 100-year low.

In Cambodia the Tonle Sap, South-East Asia’s biggest freshwater lake, nearly dried up.

In Thailand parts of the typically chocolate-colored river turned turquoise (devoid of sediments, after the opening of the Thai-financed Xayaburi dam in Laos).

• turquoise 绿松石；绿松石色；青绿色

And in Vietnam, the delta is sinking into the rising sea.

Disturbingly, none of this is likely to make upstream countries, especially China and Laos, change course and co-operate with their neighbors downstream.

Feb 5th 2020