These purveyors of the pastoral dream have a hidden neocolonialist agenda. Having achieved the highest levels of development in the West they want to freeze underdeveloped countries in pastoral poverty. The West does not need any more large dams, has built enough. Europe exploited the world´s environment to achieve its development. Now they want to prevent us from exploiting the natural resources in our own backyard, with even the best measures of environmental mitigation. So that we are condemned to perpetual underdevelopment. So that the difference between the advanced nations and backwards ones can be institutionalised. Let us oppose their neocolonialist agenda disguised as environmental idealism.
– Nepal´s Minister of Water Resources, Pashupati SJB Rana speaking at a workshop on "Managing the Environmental Impact of Water Resources Development" in late June.
June was "hang the environmentalist" month in Nepal, with the chorus led by Water Resources Minister Pashupati SJB Rana, followed by an assortment of establishmentarian politicos and bureaucrats, and journalists who do not read. The focus of their ire was activists and intellectuals who were allegedly ob-structing the construction of the Kali Gandaki A project.
Kali Gandaki A is a relatively modest but important power project in central Nepal which needs to be built to meet the country´s growing energy needs. Interestingly, none of the activists was saying that Kali Gandaki A should not be built. Instead, what they were going on about was the lack of transparency in decision-making related to the project, and asking why its estimated cost had suddenly escalated in recent years.