Shifts front old to new social and ecological environments in the Lesotho highlands water scheme; Relocating residents of the Mohale dam area

This paper presents testimonies of the people of Molika-liko in which they relate their experiences of being displaced from their villages to make way for the construction of the Mohale dam in Lesotho. In these testimonies, m embers of this community speak of the fears, anxieties, insecurities and st resses that gripped them as they prepared to leave to go to new areas; they speak of the material and spiritual losses that they have incurred in maki ng way for the construction of a dam and of the senselessness of authoritie s' attempts to compensate them. The testimonies strongly suggest that reset tlement has caused a decline in the quality of the lives of members of this community. When compared with the experiences of other communities in Afri ca who have experienced resettlement from similar projects in the last 50 y ears, the experiences of the people of Molika-liko show that the concerns o f investors, engineers continue to receive more priority than the fate of c ommunities affected by these projects.