The great river is very important to all who live along it. Boats are moored waiting for passengers at Mae Sam Laeb in Mae Hong Son's Mae Sariang district.
When you have a great big brawling river like the Salween running through your territory, perhaps it is only sensible to make something of it. So with rising oil prices threatening the stability of the energy picture, the Thai government is turning back to an old idea, a decade-old proposal for a joint Thai-Burmese venture to develop a massive hydro-electric project on the Salween River inside Burma. The government has even proclaimed that five hydropower dams could be built along this river, with a combined capacity of 15,000 megawatts.
The 2,400-kilometre river originates in Tibet, then flows through southern China into Burma, and forms a part of the Thai-Burma border before it dips back into Burma and finally empties into the Gulf of Martaban, part of the Andaman Sea.
Burma plans to use electricity generated from the project for local needs and to export the remainder to Thailand. But the exploitation of the river, which has been called the "Karen Highway" because of the course it takes through traditionally Karen lands, is not such a simple proposition. The project not only will face fierce opposition from conservationists and various NGOs because of environmental concerns, but because the Burmese military rulers are to be a partner in the venture it will also be opposed by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union, and lack support for loans from international financial institutions as well, in particular the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.