1568 



pesticides, resettlement of hundreds of thousands of famihes from the 

 reservoir area, need for large amounts of chemical fertilizer as farmers 

 were displaced from fertile floor plains to less fertile uplands, flooding of 

 prime timberlands, and diminished fish population. Nevertheless, as 

 Claire Sterling put it in a series of newspaper articles on the Mekong 

 project in 1971: "For once, developers and planners are giving some 

 study to this sort of thing before the event." *^ 



In general, observes the author of the present stud>^ the policies 

 of the Coordination Committee and its stafT have appeared to be 

 progressively more adaptive to both the sociological and the environ- 

 mental impacts of the Mekong project. Mohamed Shoaib, a World 

 Bank official, has summed up the adaptive process as one involving 

 (a) deliberateness and incrementalism, (b) increasing pragmatism — 

 learning by doing, and (c) attention to the problems created by 

 intervening in depth in the subtle equilibria of established eco- 

 systems. Shoaib observes that it can always be shown that the effects 

 of any development will be in part adverse, but that the consequences 

 of economic stagnation too are demonstrably adverse. He calls for a 

 meaningful balance between the urgency of development and the 

 demands for conservation . . . through a timely interdisciplinary 

 approach to development planning.*^ 



Author's Reassessment 



Five years after the study was completed in the late spring of 1972, 

 the author of The Mekong Project: Opportunities and Problems of 

 Regionalism sees it in the following light : 



THE MEKONG PROJECT IN PERSPECTIVE 



The theme of this study is that a regional approach to develop- 

 ment affords a focus for peaceful economic progress, serves as an 

 educational process, and establishes a base for wider cooperation 

 among participating nations. It offers a possibility for realignment of 

 nations and international structures toward diplomatic goals: regional 

 stability, international cooperation, tension reduction, a peaceful 

 alternative to insurgency, and bridges across ideological and ethnic 

 differences. The study does not assert that these are certain con- 

 sequences of the regional approach, but suggests that the approach 

 warrants further study as a possible way to improve the world system 

 to exploit economic and technological resources in a more balanced 

 and rational manner. 



The Mekong project was a natural outcome of the application of 

 U.N. values and purposes in Southeast Asia. The effort to expand it 

 greatly as a means of damping a nationalistic and ideological conflict 

 in Vietnam failed. However, the project itself showed remarkable 

 durability, even under the stress of conflict and insurgency in the 

 region. A possible lesson is that a constructive regional approach can 

 help to evolve conditions and relationships favorable to international 

 cooperation, but it is not a useful instrument for damping conflict 

 already in progress. 



With the withdrawal of the U.S. presence in Laos, Cambodia, and 

 South Vietnam, a complete takeover of governmental authority by 



85 7Wd., p. 41'J. 

 88 Ibid., p. 420. 



