Mekong transboundary cooperation: Making a problem biggerVietNamNet Bridge would like to introduce an article by Jake Brunner, head of IUCN’s Hanoi-based Indo-Burma Group and Brian Eyler, director of Stimson Center’s Washington DC-based Southeast Asia Program about the need to foster cooperation among Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in protecting the Mekong River. While they are neighbors, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam vary greatly in size, population, natural resource abundance, and level of economic development. This has resulted in a boom in dam building over the past 15 years including three dams on the Mekong mainstream. However, it is also the case that Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam can each offer its neighbors something that they cannot achieve by themselves. And as the country with the most advanced economy and is most vulnerable to the impacts of upstream hydropower, Vietnam has the capacity and self-interest to lead the negotiation process.