DAMIANO: The Aral Sea: the destruction and revival of a great lake

One of the most infamous and well recognized instances of human-caused environmental catastrophe happened in the Aral Sea in the Central Asian steppes. Once, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world by surface area, encompassing over 26,000 square miles. Now, however, the once vast and still pivotally important lake has been reduced to just 10 percent of its former size, separating into four smaller lakes. This terrifying disappearing act presents an already parched region of the planet with a titanous issue to resolve.

Political instability and tension have created a hostile environment in which cooperation on the dilemma has been deemed futile. However, as appreciation for the magnitude of the issue grows, the stigma associated with diplomacy has begun to fade away, opening up a new era in Central Asian relations.

In September of last year, a morbid sense of relief emerged in Uzbekistan following the death of their president, Islam Karimov. Under Karimov’s government, Uzbekistan was extremely isolationist, wary of foreign influence from either Russia or the United States and hostile towards its neighbors, especially Kyrgyzstan.

Now the new president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has begun to open up the country and engage in cooperation with its neighbors. Mirziyoyev first appeared on the international stage on Sept. 19-25 at the United Nations General Debate, where he made an impassioned case for cooperation and diplomacy. Mirziyoyev said Uzbekistan was “determined to engage in dialogue, constructive interaction and strengthening the good-neighborliness.”

This new appreciation for cooperation evidently inspired Uzbekistan to acknowledge its responsibility to the Aral Sea. The new president created a $2.6 billion Aral Sea Region Development Fund designed to provide provide financial support to projects helping the development of the Aral Sea region and the people who live there.

The Aral Sea has been used as an irrigation source for at least 3,000 years without consequence to the lake. However, starting in the 1960s, the Soviet government under Nikita Khrushchev began to divert the two rivers that flow into the Aral Sea, the Amu and the Syr, away from the Aral and into the surrounding desert to support cotton production and agriculture. The result was nearly immediate, as the sea began to dry up at an alarming rate. Philip Micklin, a now-retired geography professor at Western Michigan University and expert on the Aral Sea, said the catastrophe “is unprecedented in modern times.”

To add insult to injury, experts reported knowing the diversion of the rivers would have enormous consequences on the lake, yet proceeded with the project despite this. Aleksandr Asarin, an expert at the Russian State Hydroproject Institute, told The New York Times, “nobody on a lower level would dare to say a word contradicting those plans, even if it was the fate of the Aral Sea.”

There are far more consequences to this desiccation than what meets the eye. One of the most immediate issues happened when the salinity of the lake increased dramatically, causing the destruction of the fishing industry, which had once employed 40,000 workers and provided one sixth of the Soviet Union’s fish, essentially vanished. Once-prosperous port cities found themselves hundreds of miles inland. Countless merchant vessels and fishing boats now lay stranded in desert where the lake once was. Even the land left behind by the receding lake was heavily polluted from weapons tests, industrial projects, pesticides and fertilizer runoff. For the people living nearby, these toxins created a high rate of health problems and a lack of clean drinking water.

Despite these crises, steps have been made to slow and reverse the lake’s regression. In 2001, plans for a dam to connect the water of the Darya and Syr rivers was approved — and with funding from the World Bank, the Kok-Aral Dam in Kazakhstan was completed in 2005. The dam’s effects happened far quicker than the World Bank anticipated, with the northern Aral Sea level increasing by nearly 30 feet the year after the dam was complete.

While the Kok-Aral Dam does not resolve all of Kazakhstan’s problems, its effects have been greatly beneficial to local fishermen. The port of Aralsk, which was once stranded 60 miles inland, is now just 15.5 miles away from the shore. The World Bank reported in 2007 that the catch of freshwater fish reached around 2,000 tons, up from just 52 tons in 2004. Kazakhstan is now working with the World Bank on the second phase of the restoration project.

Yet the broader issue is that the Aral Sea is not just one country’s problem — it’s seven countries’ problems, as it directly borders Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and also drains into Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Kazakhstan has clearly made steps to ameliorate the crisis, Uzbekistan has decided to continue its profitable cotton production and use the Amu River as its primary irrigation source. As a consequence, the South Aral Sea has been left to dry, while the North has been slowly improving. As long as the cotton industry is productive in Uzbekistan, it seems that this will continue to be the case, despite the severe repercussions for future generations.

Vague declarations of commitment to restoring the sea have been made between the five central Asian nations, but however sincere their intentions may be, the South Aral Sea is destined to disappear if no genuine progress is made on behalf of the Uzbeks. In an increasingly volatile part of the world due to the decline of reliable water sources, such action may be necessary to prevent an even greater calamity.

In the United States, we have been afflicted with increasing calls for isolationism and nationalism. In Central Asia, however, we see how through diplomacy, the world can be greatly improved. While the Aral Sea is far from restored, the stage has been set for a rebirth in the region — showing that even the most catastrophic of disasters can be averted if we rely on cooperation rather than isolationism.