“HOW COTTON KILLED THE SEA”
Once the fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea has in the last five decades lost more than three-quarters of its area and two-thirds of its volume.
To grow cotton and rice, the Soviet Government built dams and canals diverting the water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which once sustained the sea. Ports that once supported transport, fishing and fish canning industries, are now landlocked and lie abandoned some 60-130 km from the shore.
The wind carries dust, salts and pesticide residues from the dried-up seabed throughout the region, causing serious health problems. The infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. The image of rusting boats abandoned in the desert has become a symbol of the environmental and human disaster caused by the irrational use of water.
