Tri An Lake

From the water of Trị An Lake, 76 islands rise, large and small. The lake is so wide that the eye cannot take in all of it. It covers more than 32,000 hectares on the Đồng Nai River, in the province of Đồng Nai. Among the flat lands around it, this landscape of lake and islands looks like nothing else nearby.

The lake holds several stories. One is about electricity. One is about people who had to move. One is about nature. And one is about how a hydropower project came to be a weekend outing for millions of people.

But to understand Trị An Lake, it helps to know how it came to be.

In 1982, work began on the Trị An hydropower project. It was a joint effort of Vietnam and the Soviet Union, a large project for a country just out of the war and in need of electricity to grow its economy. In 1987 the reservoir was finished, and the water began to rise. Forests, stretches of land and riverside villages had to give way to the wide lake. Its making was tied to the resettlement of many households.

The Trị An Hydropower Plant was established on December 2, 1987. Its first generating unit formally began running on January 1, 1988. By September 1989, all four units were working. The plant is designed for 400 megawatts, with an average output of 1.76 billion kilowatt hours a year. At a time when Vietnam was badly short of electricity, that was a significant source of power.

So looking out over the lake means looking at a project with several purposes: making power, regulating water, developing fisheries, and supplying water to homes downstream. Over the years the lake also became a place where millions of people escape the city every weekend.

In ecological terms, Trị An is more than a reservoir built for a project. The lake and the Đồng Nai River together form a partly man-made freshwater wetland. It belongs to the Đồng Nai Nature and Culture Reserve, and to the biosphere reserve that bears the same name.

A biosphere reserve is a UNESCO-recognized area where nature is protected and the people living there keep working the land. UNESCO records 259 bird species in this area, along with 99 kinds of fish. It also records 64 reptile species and 33 amphibian species. The surface of the lake is not only scenery. It is a living habitat.

The reason to come to Trị An Lake is not one particular sight. It is a moment at the rail of a boat, looking at 76 islands rising from still water. Beneath lie the old forest, the old villages and the memory of the people who gave up their land. Early in the morning, birdsong drifts from the Đồng Nai forest out across the lake. Then one understands why a hydropower project could become a place that people keep wanting to return to.