April 13, 2006--The Aral Carp
The Aral Sea, which along with the Caspian, became the poster child for the environmental degradation that was one tragic consequence of so much failed Soviet state planning and corruption, that dead sea is coming back to life.
It had lost 75 percent of its water as the result of the Soviet-era practice of draining it to irrigate cotton plantations across Central Asia. And along with this loss of water was the loss of traditional livelihoods, including that of fishermen who had plied those waters for millennia. The Aral had become a literal cesspool of poisonous minerals and had even split in two because there was so little water left.
It had once been the fourth largest lake in the world, teeming with carp and flounder, but it had been emptied and polluted to the point that those fish died off and the people living on what had been its shores sank into seeming hopeless, endless poverty.
The Soviet Union imploded and into the Kazakhstan vacuum came the World Bank. This in itself did not hold much promise as the World Bank is more famous for its failed development schemes than its successes. This though, as reported by the NY Times, is turning out to be a good story of hope and regeneration (see article linked below).
Beginning in 2001, new dams and dikes were built, and as a result the desert is being pushed back and the Aral Sea is refilling, having recently expanded by 30 percent. It is almost at the viability stage and men have again begun to fish its waters. On a good day now they can bring in catches of carp and flounder worth $85, an astonishing sum considering the state of things only a few years back. Villagers are thus returning. A fish hatchery, paid for by a grant from Israel (yes, Israel) is incubating enough fish so that 30 million carp and flounder will be released into the Aral when it is totally refilled. This should take about five more years.
Yerbolat Sartaganov, a 21 year-old who went to the capital to work in the oil and gas industry comes from one of the abandoned fishing villages. He told the Times that when the Sea is full he will go home, “My grandfather was a fisherman, and when the water returns I will be a fisherman too.”
It had lost 75 percent of its water as the result of the Soviet-era practice of draining it to irrigate cotton plantations across Central Asia. And along with this loss of water was the loss of traditional livelihoods, including that of fishermen who had plied those waters for millennia. The Aral had become a literal cesspool of poisonous minerals and had even split in two because there was so little water left.
It had once been the fourth largest lake in the world, teeming with carp and flounder, but it had been emptied and polluted to the point that those fish died off and the people living on what had been its shores sank into seeming hopeless, endless poverty.
The Soviet Union imploded and into the Kazakhstan vacuum came the World Bank. This in itself did not hold much promise as the World Bank is more famous for its failed development schemes than its successes. This though, as reported by the NY Times, is turning out to be a good story of hope and regeneration (see article linked below).
Beginning in 2001, new dams and dikes were built, and as a result the desert is being pushed back and the Aral Sea is refilling, having recently expanded by 30 percent. It is almost at the viability stage and men have again begun to fish its waters. On a good day now they can bring in catches of carp and flounder worth $85, an astonishing sum considering the state of things only a few years back. Villagers are thus returning. A fish hatchery, paid for by a grant from Israel (yes, Israel) is incubating enough fish so that 30 million carp and flounder will be released into the Aral when it is totally refilled. This should take about five more years.
Yerbolat Sartaganov, a 21 year-old who went to the capital to work in the oil and gas industry comes from one of the abandoned fishing villages. He told the Times that when the Sea is full he will go home, “My grandfather was a fisherman, and when the water returns I will be a fisherman too.”
posted by Steven Zwerling at
12:11 PM
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