Central Asia pledges action over Aral Sea

Central Asia pledges action over Aral Sea

By Douglas Busvine

DASHKHOVUZ, Turkmenistan (Reuter): Cash-strapped Central Asian
states pledged action on the Aral Sea ecological disaster zone
but their one-day summit on Friday last week was marked by
divisions over joint funding of a clean-up.

Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov told a news conference
the five states directly affected by the sea's rapid shrinkage
had to act together if they were to solve the problem and attract
international help.

"Nobody will help us if the states affected by this disaster
do not devote their own attention to it," Karimov said.

Divided between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea was
once the world's fourth largest lake but has been shrinking since
1960 after Soviet planners expanded intensive irrigation on its
tributaries, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, to boost the
cotton harvest.

Between 1960 and 1993 the lake's level fell by more than 16
meters, its area by 45 percent and its volume by three-quarters.
Salinity rose threefold, killing fish stocks and decimating a
fishing industry which used to support 60,000 people.

Now the sea has retreated as much as 150 km (95 km) from its
old shores, exposing salt beds laced with pesticides, which are
whipped up and dumped by winds as much as 500 km (310 miles) away
-- hitting the health of the local population and damaging crops.

The international community, headed by the World Bank, has
donated more than US$40 million to feasibility studies on an
action plan to improve the environmental situation.

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev opened talks by
berating his counterparts for paying only 15 percent of the cash
the five states pledged two years ago into a joint fund on saving
the Aral Sea.

The five states had pledged to pay founding contributions of
one percent of their national budgets into the fund.

But at the closing news conference a common view emerged that
spending by individual states on environmental projects linked to
the Aral, not deposited in the fund itself, should be counted as
contributions.

"The information in President Nazarbayev's report gave a
rather one-sided view of the problem," Uzbekistan's President
Islam Karimov said.

"A lot of money has been spent where people are most affected,
but this money came from national budgets and was not contributed
to the common fund," he said.

Nazarbayev was confirmed as the fund's chairman, but its role
looked to have been downgraded after the non-payers -- led by
Turkmenistan -- appeared to have won the day.

Presidents from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan attended the summit. A Russian
delegation was absent due to scheduling problems.

The meeting also covered procedural and bureaucratic issues.
The interstate council on saving the Aral Sea, a second structure
with a coordinating role, will in future be chaired by Turkmen
Deputy Prime Minister Matkarim Radzhapov.

Peter Whitford, a World Bank official, said the apparent
downgrading of the international fund was merely a recognition of
the situation that already exists. But he described the meeting
overall as a step forward.

"They are conscious of the need to attract international
cooperation and they realize that being united and positive is
necessary to do that," he said.

An international conference on the Aral Sea will be held under
United Nations auspices in Nukus, in Uzbekistan's autonomous
republic of Karakalpakstan, this September.