International Cooperation Needed to Save Aral Sea, UN Secretary-General - pic

[Kadie]

Death of a sea: Ships lie in the sand near Muynak, Uzbekistan, in what used to be the Aral Sea. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who visited the sea's remains during a trip through former Soviet Central Asia, called the it one of the planet's most shocking disasters.
Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
photo from sfgate.com


International Cooperation Needed to Save Aral Sea, UN Secretary-General
April 6, 2010
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits During a visit to five former Soviet republics, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon encouraged Central Asian leaders to work together to keep the Aral Sea from disappearing.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called the diminishing Aral Sea “one of the worst environmental disasters in the world” and asked regional leaders to come together to solve the crisis during a visit to Central Asia, Reuters reports. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, the sea has been shrinking for the past 50 years.

Ban flew over the basin in a helicopter to witness the arid salt flats left by the disappearing sea.

The sea began decreasing in size since the 1960’s, when Soviet planners began siphoning off water to increase irrigation for cotton production in Uzbekistan. Since then, the sea has decreased in size by about 70 percent with the remaining water has become more saline, consequently damaging the area’s fishing industry.

“It was a vivid testament to what happens when we waste our common natural resources, when we neglect our environment, when we mismanage our environment,” Ban said, according to United Press International.

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http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/international-cooperation-needed-to-save-aral-sea-un-secretary-general/