Introduction

There are more than 45,000 large dams with more than 500,000 km2 total reservoir surface have been
built around the world with purposed of irrigation, hydroelectricity and drinking water reservoir, that
providing the improvement of economy of the countries that build it (Gleick, 1998; WCD, 2000).The
building of dams as the economic development of the countries may dragging a countries towards
environmental issues and impacts towards its ecosystem in many ways.The inundation of large number of
large areas of lands and forest for dams building in the name of national development degrade the
environment and giving such societal impacts towards local indigenous peoples in many cases around the
world According to Rosenberg, "large dams and river diversions have proven to be primary destroyers of
aquatic habitat, contributing substantially to the destruction of fisheries, the extinction of species, and the
overall loss of the ecosystem services on which the human economy depends (Rosenberg et al,1998).
The relationship between fauna and flora degradation and hydroelectric dams construction in the name of
economy and development focusing the state of Sarawak will be discussed further below.
Drivers
Sarawak located in Borneo has been bless a lot of resources to build a hydroelectric dams, by the presence
of numerous rivers, low seismicity, no volcanism, and having such well trained workforce that speak
English as second language(dam and resilience). The first systematic review about Sarawak hydro
potential has been done in 1962, but due to low demand of electricity during that time, only in 1973 after
the oil price shock combine with increasing demand , Sarawak started to develop its first major hydro
project in Batang Ai with capacity of 108MW that supply energy for Kuching city. Sarawak were capable
to have about 20000 MW of hydro potential that open the opportunity for state government to exploit the
potential for economic development. In 2008, Federal Government develops the Sarawak Corridor of
Renewable Energy of SCORE that is focusing to develop Sarawak abundant hydro power potential for
economic purposes that include the building of 12 large hydroelectric dams and two coal power plant
with 9380 MW capacity before 2030 and aiming to build more than 50 dams in a long term to having 20
GW of hydroelectric capacity in Sarawak. (Shirley kammen) Figure 1

This ambitious project is aiming to change the economic base of Sarawak from nature resource base
industry (oil, timber and gas) to manufacturing industry that hopefully improving the living standard and
infrastructure development by following the Norway and Iceland economic models. The abundance of
renewable energy from SCORE is aiming to attract major investors to invest and develop in new economy
in Sarawak (dam and resilience) as well as importing the energy to neighboring state and countries such
as Sabah, Brunei and Indonesia. Once all 12 dams are completed, Mukah would supposedly become a
central administrative area, and a hub for training and education, Tanjung Manis would become a regional
Halal food processing center as well as a major port city and source for palm oil and timber while
Samalaju would host heavy industries and port facilities (Bulan damn) Those project were aiming to
increase the number of jobs in the Sarawak by factor of 2.5 that doubling the number of population to 4.6
million ( RECODA,2007) The second benefit from SCORE plan is to improved energy security through
the diversification of the electric sector by having more reliable renewable energy security because
Sarawak completely depended on fossil fuel and at the moment. (Bulan score) The SCORE project also
projected to benefit Sarawak to have inclusive development in Sarawak states, to reduce poverty as well
as improving the infrastructure of the Sarawak especially in the remote area (Bulan,score)

Pressure

References
Gleick, P. 1998 The Worlds Water 19981999. Island Press, Washington DC
Hirsch, P., & Warren, C. (1998). The politics of environment in Southeast Asia: resources and resistance.
Psychology Press.
[RECODA] Regional Corridor Development Authority (2007) Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy: an
overview.

State

Government of Sarawak, Kuching

Rosenberg, D. M., McCully, P., & Pringle, C. M. (2000). Global-scale environmental effects of
hydrological alterations: introduction. BioScience,50(9), 746-751
WCD 2000 Dams and development. A new framework for decision-making. The report of World
Commission

on

Dams.

ISBN:

1-85383-798-9

356.

London

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/way-forward/world-commission-dams

and

Sterling,

VA.