I started reading about the Aral Sea disaster in 1989 ahead of my first visit, as a student and tourist, to Uzbekistan, then still a Soviet republic. In Karakalpakstan, the autonomous republic in current-day Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea has all but disappeared. Where fishing communities once thrived, all that remains is a scarred, desert landscape. Rusted ships are perched precariously on piles of sand and salt, along with a potent, unhealthy mix of toxic pollutants from industrial agriculture.

Celebrated in its heyday as the world’s fourth-largest lake, the Aral Sea shrunk dramatically after the two major rivers that fed its waters were diverted in the 1960s to irrigate cotton and rice. As the water was drained and diverted, coastlines receded, remaining waters became saltier and evaporated, killing off the fish that communities had relied on for decades. The land became more and more degraded, transformed into a desert where plants were unable to grow. Climate change made the situation worse and in May 2018, a major sandstorm swept across Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, covering the area in a layer of toxic dust and salt. People struggled to breathe; air transport was affected along with agriculture and cattle breeding, a key industry in the area.

The shrinking of the Aral Sea is viewed as one of the worst environmental disasters of our time. On the Kazakhstan side, thanks to a dam funded by the World Bank, the Sea is slowly coming back, though to only a small fraction of its original size. On the Uzbek side, Karakalpakstan is taking strong measures to adapt and make the land more resilient. One example is the planting of Saxaul, a sand- and salt-loving tree species. These trees act as a barrier from the sand with the goal of stabilizing the soil and preventing the toxic sandstorms that have plagued the area and increased health problems for the community. Almost incredibly, we will see a spiny forest grow where there was once a sea.

Through a project called the Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Program for the Aral Sea Basin (“CAMP4ASB”), the World Bank has been supporting both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in their climate mitigation and adaptation efforts in the former Aral Sea. The $38 million project includes credit lines for small- and medium-scale agricultural and agribusiness investments that typically save water and energy while supplying better products to the market. Up to date some 15,000 people benefited from investments that include the restoration and rehabilitation of degraded land , conservation agriculture and the diversification of crops, including growing salt and , drought, pest and disease-resistant crops for income generation. An additional US$19 million from the Green Climate Fund is being added to expand these efforts to the poorest and most vulnerable populations in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, primarily through community grants.