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SOME large dams just shouldn’t be built. They cause too much collateral
damage to nature or human societies that happen to be in the way. Some such
boondoggles become causes célèbres: the Narmada dams in India,
say, or Turkey’s controversial Ilisu project. This week we highlight another
(see “Concrete jungle”).
Belize’s Chalillo dam, on which construction could begin next month,
would flood a valley slap bang in the middle of one of the few surviving
rainforests in Central America—an oasis of rare species. Asked to compile
an assessment, biologists at the Natural History Museum in London…