Irreversible damage to the Mekong River's aquatic resources and fisheries is a direct threat to the livelihoods, culture and food security of millions of people who live along the river's banks. If built, the dam would forcibly resettle over 2,100 people, some of whom would be displaced for the fourth time in 15 years. In addition, the dam will directly affect the lives of more than 202,000 people living near the dam through adverse impacts to their livelihoods, income and food security due to the loss of fisheries, agricultural land and riverbank gardens, an end to gold panning in the river, and increased difficulty in accessing products from the forest, such as wild banana flower and rattan.

Given Laos' poor record of enforcing environmental laws and meeting bare minimum social safeguards commitments, the communities who will be impacted are likely to follow in the footsteps of other impoverished dam affected communities in the country. Furthermore, as the full social and environmental costs associated with the dam have yet to be adequately examined by the dam developer, the true costs of the project have yet to be known and the social and environmental programs that will be needed to mitigate and compensate for the dam's impacts have yet to be calculated.

The project will forcibly displace 2,100 people and negatively affect an additional 202,000 people who have had no say in decisions about the project. As the project failed to adequately consult the people living near the dam site and the limited consultations that did occur were meaningless as key project information was not provided to participants, the dam has failed to meet minimum standards for consultation with directly-affected communities. Furthermore, consultation within the region has also failed to meet minimal standards as the project's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report was only released to the public in mid-March 2011, weeks after public consultations on the dam were held in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The Xayaburi Dam brings with it many envrionmental issues. In short, the dam will cause irreversible and permanent damage to the river's habitat and ecosystem, which in turn will impact the local communities. The Mekong River Commission's 2010 Strategic Environmental Assessment on Mekong mainstream dams warns of a future of grave ecological destruction should the cascade of dams be built.

Some key findings of the strategic environmental assessment include:

• The cascade of lower Mekong mainstream dams would turn 55% of the Mekong River into a series of reservoirs.

• The dams would block important fish migration routes, resulting in significant fishery losses of between 700,000 to 1.4 million tonnes, estimated to be worth between US$476 million and US$956 million.

• Fisheries are the main source of protein in the region, but Cambodia and Laos would be the hardest hit, as little to no alternatives exist. Livestock production would be unable to compensate for the loss.

• By inundating agricultural land and blocking vital sediment and nutrient flows, the dams would reduce agricultural productivity by more than $25 million/year.

• As a biodiversity hotspot, the dams would lead to permanent losses of species of global importance. Some areas of the Mekong would see losses of up to half the recorded species, along with the extinction of flagship species such as the Giant Mekong Catfish and Irrawaddy dolphin.

• The dams would contribute to growing inequality in the region, as region's poor would suffer the greatest impacts.

• Many of the risks associated with the dams cannot be mitigated and would represent losses of economic, social and environmental assets

• Recommendations include a 10-year deferment of all plans for dams on the Mekong mainstream, the full translation and systematic distribution of the SEA report, further studies to be undertaken, and that the mainstream never be used as a test case.

• As the EIA's scope only considered a ten kilometre radius below the dam site, the report failed to provide adequate consideration of the transboundary impacts of the project. Furthermore, as the report's baseline information and data was found to be insufficient, many of the dam's environmental and social impacts have yet to be fully identified and many of the dam developer's proposed mitigation measures remain unproven and inadequate.