Environmental groups are not completely against dams. We approve

Hear the measured words of Ma Jun, spoken not with rage but with balance, as one who seeks harmony between progress and preservation: “Environmental groups are not completely against dams. We approve of appropriate development.” In these words shines wisdom often lost in the clash between industry and conservation. He does not call for endless obstruction, nor does he surrender to blind ambition. Instead, he proclaims the middle path—that the task of humanity is not to halt all building, but to build with discernment, with respect for both nature and necessity.

The heart of his saying lies in the phrase appropriate development. For not every dam is an evil, nor every project an abomination. Dams can bring light to villages long dark, water to fields long dry, and protection from floods that once destroyed. Yet, when built without wisdom, they can also drown valleys, scatter communities, and shatter the delicate balance of rivers and the lives they sustain. Thus, Ma Jun’s words remind us that the question is not “to build or not to build,” but “how, where, and why shall we build?”

History itself gives testimony to this duality. Consider the Hoover Dam in the United States, a marvel of engineering that transformed the arid lands of the American West. It provided electricity, irrigation, and flood control, fueling growth and prosperity for millions. Yet compare this with the Three Gorges Dam in China, which, though it brought immense power and flood protection, also displaced over a million people and caused ecological upheaval. Both are dams, both serve human needs, but their stories reveal the difference between wise balance and unchecked ambition.

The wisdom of Ma Jun is to acknowledge both the promise and peril of such projects. Environmental groups, often painted as enemies of progress, are here revealed as guardians of balance. They do not reject the dam because it is a dam, but because too often dams have been built without heed for their costs—without listening to the people uprooted, without respect for the species destroyed, without care for the rivers made silent. To say “we approve of appropriate development” is to demand that development itself be just, sustainable, and humane.

There is also in these words a warning to leaders and planners: progress bought at the price of destruction is not true progress. A road that leads to ruin is no road at all. A dam that devastates while it provides is not a triumph but a trade of one suffering for another. Thus, Ma Jun’s teaching calls for humility in human ambition, for the recognition that we are not masters of nature, but stewards entrusted with its care.

The lesson for us is clear: let us not oppose blindly, nor consent blindly. Let us weigh every project as if weighing the fate of our children, for indeed that is what we do. In our communities, we must ask: will this building bring lasting good, or fleeting profit? Will it serve both people and planet, or sacrifice one for the other? In this balance lies the difference between wisdom and folly.

Therefore, children of tomorrow, take Ma Jun’s words to heart. Do not reject progress, but demand appropriate progress. Welcome the works of human hands when they are guided by justice, sustainability, and respect for the earth. Resist them when they trample lives and destroy the living world. For true development is not measured in concrete and steel, but in the harmony of human flourishing with the rivers, mountains, and skies that sustain us all. In this way, we may build not only dams, but a future worthy of the name of civilization.