Focus on Northern Aral Sea fishery

Standing on the shore of what used to be the Aral Sea, Kanali Kanybetov remembers nostalgically how fishermen in his home village of Jambul, a tiny Kazakh fishing hamlet of 1,500, had cast their nets into what was once the fourth largest lake in the world. Recalling it like yesterday, his eyes well up with tears, knowing full well those days are long gone. "I have always been a fisherman. It's in my blood," he told IRIN. Like many fishing villages in the area today, Jambul - about 50 km southwest of Aralsk, the area's largest town - looks starkly out of place, and time. Once teeming with activity, dust and sand swirl profusely through its now empty streets, as stray dogs bark haphazardly between buildings. Many young people have long since left the once thriving community in search of jobs, leaving the elderly with only their memories to comfort them. SEA NOW 25 KM AWAY And the sea - nowhere in sight - has receded 25 km to the southwest, while a dozen rusting fishing vessels sit stranded surreally in the village's now barren harbour, testament to an era long since past. "This is not the village I want to remember," the 65-year-old grandfather said. While many people have heard of the Aral Sea catastrophe, few are aware of men like Kanybetov, fishermen who lost their livelihoods after what has been described as one of the worst environmental catastrophes of the 20th century. CAUSE OF THE DISASTER When central planners in Moscow decided to turn a large swath of Central Asia's arid flatlands into the Soviet Union's chief cotton producing zone, diverting large quantities of water from the region's two main rivers - the Amudar'ya and Syrdar'ya - in the 1970s for irrigation purposes, they did so at the expense of the Aral, which largely depended on the flow of the two rivers to replenish and restore its once abundant waters.

Kanali Kanybetov with his granddaughter in Jambul

Its environmental implications largely ignored, the consequences of the Soviets' folly festered like an open wound for decades. According to the book "Problems and Perspectives of the Aral Sea Crisis", over a three-decade period, the desiccation of the Aral progressed so much that by 1995 the sea had lost nearly three-quarters of its water volume. Its surface area shrank from 64,500 sq km to under 30,000 sq km, the level dropping by some 19 metres. In the process, the lake subdivided remarkably into two sections: the larger Southern Aral Sea (SAS), straddling both northern Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan, and the smaller Northern Aral Sea (NAS), the whole of which is in Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, the Amudar'ya and Syrdar'ya, which between them used to supply the Aral with between 50 and 60 cu km of fresh water every year, now provides hardly a trickle. Most years the water from both rivers does not even reach the sea's present shoreline, evaporating instead far from the sea. FISHERIES COLLAPSE With the demise of the sea also came the near collapse of the region's fisheries. In 1959, the Aral's fishing fleet hauled in close to 50,000 mt of fish, mostly carp, bream, pike-perch, roach, barbel and a local species of sturgeon. By 1994, hardly 5,000 mt of carp was retrieved from the polluted lakes of the ruined deltas of the Amudar'ya and Syrdar'ya. These lakes were the only source of fish in what was left of the Aral Sea. The environmental impact has been particularly devastating in and around the NAS, where almost two dozen fishing communities, like Jambul, once thrived. In the northern port town of Aralsk, shipyards where vessels up to 500 mt deadweight were once built, stand empty, while the town's fish processing plant, once the largest in the former Soviet Union and a major employer for the region, sits abandoned. Nearby railway tracks, once groaning under the wheels of refrigerated wagons transporting fish to Tashkent, Moscow and points beyond, stand idle. In short, by 1975, fishing on the Aral had lost its commercial significance. "For 20 years, the one main identity of the region collapsed," Kurt Christensen, the chairman of the Danish Society for the Living Sea and one of the leading advocates for the fishermen in the area, told IRIN in Aralsk. REVIVAL PROJECT Since 1995, through its project entitled, "From Kattegat to Aral Sea", the group has been active in re-establishing the fishing industry in the NAS by working with the Kazakh authorities, local NGOs and the fishermen themselves, spending about US $1 million in the process. Targeting fishermen and their families, the aim of the project is to support the maintenance and development of the fishery culture around the NAS.

A sattellite shot of the Aral Sea in its entirety

According to a report by the Danish group, as ground-water salinity in the sea increased, the number of indigenous fish in the Aral declined. In an effort to maintain employment in the area, scientists introduced fish from other parts of the Soviet Union, including the Baltic Sea, the White Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Among the species introduced at this time was the flounder, which could adapt to the varying conditions in the sea, especially with regard to salinity - and remains so to this day. Meanwhile, a major government aid programme was launched to support families around the Aral by moving them away from villages in the new desert alongside the coastline to places like Balkhash, Kapchagay, Alakol, Zaysan - all lakes situated between 1,000 and 1,500 km east of the sea. Others were moved west to the Caspian Sea, while the rest - about 50 percent of a total of up to 15,000 - were settled on state collective farms along the Syrdar'ya. Declared as being in an ecological disaster zone, 17 fishing communities in the vicinity of the NAS moved out, after which their villages, including centuries-old cemeteries, simply disappeared under the encroaching sand dunes. Christenson noted that around 1965, some 3,000 people had been directly employed in the fishing industry, not to mention thousands more whose livelihoods were economically dependent on fishing. But as the industry deteriorated, many fishermen had to switch to other occupations in order to survive. In villages, many people who refused to abandon their homes took up animal husbandry instead. The fishermen's economy changed from a salary system to one of barter and exchange, with Christenson recalling how one fisherman told him in 1996 that he had not seen actual banknotes for three years. Sometimes the fishermen received provisions for their work - sometimes, nothing. At the nearby Baikonur space centre, the main purchaser of Aral fish, where thousands of Russian soldiers and scientists once worked, gasoline, engines, flour, and even margarine were offered in exchange for fish. But such realities brought forth social immobility for the fishermen, not to mention a decline in terms of their pride and self-sustainability. A MEASURE OF SUCCESS Today, those men who continue to fish the Aral - largely dependent on the flounder trade - increasingly find themselves unable to compete. In addition to a lack of resources and equipment, prices now being offered by local fish receiving centres - now privatised - remain painfully low.

A fishing boat lies stranded outside Jambul

"We can deliver, but nowadays the prices being offered by fish receiving centres are too low," Zhalgasbay Izbasarov, another local fisherman in Jambul, told IRIN. "We are getting barely 30 US cents a kilo. This sum is very low. The fish are sold on for a much higher rate." According to the father-of-four, just to get to the water's edge from home, he has to travel overland 35 km each day. "Life as a fishermen isn't easy. It's like cards. To some degree it depends on luck," he remarked. Fortunately, his luck, and the luck of others like him, may be changing. While there remains much to be done, experts agree that the situation in the NAS is looking brighter than before. Beginning with an ambitious and successful fishing trial from the village of Tastubek in 1996, thousands of people, largely through a strong grass-roots effort, have taken part in re-establishing a fishery on the Aral, not to mention raising awareness of perspectives for the development of the region as a whole. Moreover, according to the Danish Society for a Living Sea, the fishermen are now returning to their villages. Ninety new fishing "brigades" and cooperatives have been established, comprising over 600 active fishermen, while remaining fish treatment and transportation facilities have been put back to work, with new ones added. And an independent local NGO, the Aral Tenizi, set up in 1998, is working to help re-establish the sea, as well as supporting the fishermen and their families in this transformation phase.

Fish prices remain painfully low for the fishermen

"We want to help the fishermen and their families through economic, social, ecological and financial support," Aral Tenizi's president, Akshabak Batimova, told IRIN in her office in Aralsk. The NGO is currently working with some 600 fishermen, and counts about 1,000 members. Its aims are shared by local, regional and national authorities, and it is actively supported by a growing number of NGOs in the villages and towns around the NAS. "Our greatest success is proving that the Aral Sea is still very much alive," she said, noting that in 1996, fishermen used to fish in one site in the sea, while today they were fishing in 10. With support from the Danish Society, the NGO works to motivate the fishermen to work the sea as opposed to the surrounding lakes, which had been the case earlier. "We give money for clothing, nets and loans," Batimova said, adding that to date the NGO had successfully established refrigerated fish reception centres in four separate villages. "These centres play a very important role in the temporary storage of fish," she explained, after which the fish are taken to one of three private fish reception centres in Aralsk. However, limited capacity at these centres often drives the prices down, which is why the NGO has decided to establish its own fish processing centre in the town's former bakery. "This will belong to the NGO and the fishermen," Batimova said, adding that fish would be gutted, cleaned and boxed before being shipped to other cities - hopefully at higher prices for the fishermen. Despite limited economic resources, volunteer workers, as well as fishing brigades, are now working to complete the centre, but still awaiting further assistance and investment to enable them to do so. Commenting on the endeavour, Christensen remarked: "Everybody in the region agrees that a well organised and skilled fish treatment is the sine qua non of further positive development," noting that the establishment of such an enterprise would fulfil the last aim of the current Danish project. WORLD BANK CASH FOR DAM PROJECT Meanwhile, another positive development consists of an ambitious effort by the World Bank to construct a closure dyke across the lower end of the NAS, thereby to channel more water northwards. The World Bank has agreed to provide two-thirds of the costs of the US $86 million project, set for completion in five years, with Astana providing the rest. "The NAS fishermen will benefit greatly from this," Christensen said, noting that with stable water levels, some infrastructure could be established, including harbours and landing sites. He cautioned that the biological situation remained somewhat uncertain in terms of salinity and diversity of species, but it would most likely be relatively stable, with a significantly higher salinity in the western parts. HOPE FOR BETTER FUTURE "There is a future here," Batimova added. "After the World Bank completes the dam, fresh water fish will return."

Fishermen in the north now have hope for a better future

But despite these positive signs, Christensen warned against complacency, stressing that the fishing industry in the SAS, to the best of his knowledge, now no longer existed. "The government and the international agency must support the fishery in the NAS region now - exactly at this moment," he warned. All the same, Christensen remained upbeat, but cautious, noting belief in the possibility of reviving the fishing industry was much stronger now than just five years earlier. "The NAS fishery industry is being revitalised. This is not a question of hope, but of fact," he said, emphasising that the question now was how it would happen. His group wants to ensure that the fishing industry is organised to prevent ruthless profit-seeking interests from exploiting the potential which now exists only to take out the surplus and provide no benefit to local fishermen like Kanybetov. Already there have been examples of people coming from different parts of Kazakhstan who try to build up an enterprise, fail to succeed and then leave the area with the company's available assets. "If international support should be given to the fishery industry here - and it should - then it is extremely important to have a democratic control of the inputs and benefits," Christensen said, pointing to the work of Aral Tenizi as an excellent example.