UN calls for cooperation over shrinking Aral Sea
Source: Agencies |
April 5, 2010, Monday
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UNITED Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Central Asian states to work together to tackle the disastrous effects of the shrinking Aral Sea yesterday after local people urged the UN to resolve a regional dispute.
Much of the former bed of what was once the world's fourth largest lake is now a desert covered with scrub and salt flats. The sea's evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.
"I was so shocked," Ban said after viewing the damage by helicopter, describing it as "clearly one of the worst environmental disasters in the world."
He was on a tour of the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia that lie on some of the world's biggest untapped oil, gas, uranium and gold reserves.
The people living around the Aral Sea are some of the poorest in the region and struggle with declining fresh water supplies and fish stocks, pollution and violent sand storms. In 1990 the sea split into a large southern Uzbek part and a smaller Kazakh portion.
"I urge all the leaders (of Central Asia), including President (Islam) Karimov of Uzbekistan to sit down together and try to find solutions," said Ban, who is scheduled to meet with the Uzbek leader today. "All specialised agencies of the United Nations will provide necessary assistance and expertise."
In Moynak, once on the coastline of the Aral Sea but now surrounded by sand, Ban was met by a group of about 20 townspeople who complained about the possible impact of the Rogun hydroelectric power plant that Tajikistan wants to build.
"If Rogun is constructed we will be in a much more difficult situation," local teacher Zhanabay Zhusipov told Ban. "There should be an international inquiry by the United Nations on all these hydro-electric power stations."
Much of the former bed of what was once the world's fourth largest lake is now a desert covered with scrub and salt flats. The sea's evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.
"I was so shocked," Ban said after viewing the damage by helicopter, describing it as "clearly one of the worst environmental disasters in the world."
He was on a tour of the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia that lie on some of the world's biggest untapped oil, gas, uranium and gold reserves.
The people living around the Aral Sea are some of the poorest in the region and struggle with declining fresh water supplies and fish stocks, pollution and violent sand storms. In 1990 the sea split into a large southern Uzbek part and a smaller Kazakh portion.
"I urge all the leaders (of Central Asia), including President (Islam) Karimov of Uzbekistan to sit down together and try to find solutions," said Ban, who is scheduled to meet with the Uzbek leader today. "All specialised agencies of the United Nations will provide necessary assistance and expertise."
In Moynak, once on the coastline of the Aral Sea but now surrounded by sand, Ban was met by a group of about 20 townspeople who complained about the possible impact of the Rogun hydroelectric power plant that Tajikistan wants to build.
"If Rogun is constructed we will be in a much more difficult situation," local teacher Zhanabay Zhusipov told Ban. "There should be an international inquiry by the United Nations on all these hydro-electric power stations."
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