The Aral Sea and its Fishery

PART 1

This report is based on the concrete experiences we have had in working with the Aral Sea since 1991, and hence we have a personal engagement in several of the problems, the report should describe. The knowledge founding the sections on natural- and cultural history has been gathered during the same period, using among other sources, the articles and reports describing the Aral Sea and the life that has been and still is conducted in the area around the sea. The vast amount of information available has been confronted with the factual circumstances, as we have encountered them, and with the numerous discussions we have had with the people, we have been working with, in Denmark and in Kazakstan.

The purpose of this report is to formulate the leitmotifs in the fishery- and development project "From Kattegat to Aral Sea - a fishery project", and it is an attempt to introduce light and shade into the many journalistic and scientific articles and reports that have been written on the Aral Sea. The journalistic-scientific manifold of information on the Aral Sea and the people living by and with it, might seem incomprehensible and difficult to take in a general view of, among other reasons because the origin of much data is to be found in the Soviet history and science. Along the way we have had to revise our knowledge on a number of factual particulars, but it is not our aim, however, to archaeologically cross check the existing reports and articles in order to create a new and better hermeneutic summary of the picture, they may describe. Instead, we have treated the statistic and scientific information as elements in a larger story, concerning real people and a real sea (still alive!). If we have cross checked our information, it should therefore be thus understood: Our accumulated experience is a web of work, travelling and reading, continuously intervening and crossing each other.

Henrik Jøker Bjerre

Kurt Bertelsen Christensen

The Non Governmental organised (NGO) project "From Kattegat to Aral Sea" (1996-1998) should in 1997 carry out a midway evaluation. The report contains a separate section with the evaluation results . In this we saw the occasion of meeting a need, so far unfulfilled - to promote the project through a report that provides an overall view of the area, we are dealing with, of the experiences we have had, and of the perspectives of this project.

The purpose of the report is hence fourfold:

• To give a short introduction to the recent history of Kazakstan and particularly of the Aral Sea.
• To create an overall view of the project sequence, since it started out in mid 1994.
• To draw the perspectives of the project in order to obtain a basis for the discussions on the question: whether the project should be continued and extended till 2001.
• To discuss the sketch of a future project.

The report is motivated by the fact that the Kazakstani and Danish partners at the present stage agree that the project should be continued and possibly extended. For this purpose, an expert evaluation is to be carried out throughout 1998. This analysis should clarify the conditions of a larger three year project, beginning in mid 1999. The 1998-phase is also intended to maintain the democratic development in the area and to strengthen and enlarge the co-operation between Denmark and Kazakstan in accordance with the NGO concept. The results of this work are to be documented in a substantial "project document". This document could motivate the continuation of the project, at what level and in what shape this should happen, or it could motivate the ending of the project.

In case the project is continued, the investigation can form the project description as regards to further applications to donors. If the project is closed, the investigation serves two purposes:

• An extended evaluation of the project.
• A heightened understanding for the closing of the project.

Geography and demography: Covering an area of more than 2,700,000 km², Kazakstan is the largest of the five Central Asian countries. Before Kazakstan gained its independence in 1991, it was the second largest republic of the USSR, counting 16 million inhabitants, 8 million of whom were ethnic Kazak. Since 1991, the Russian and German population in Kazakstan have decreased slightly, but the Kazak hasn't grown at the same pace. From 1992-1994 the total population went down by app. 200,000 and the emigration continues. The citizens of Kazakstan are now termed "Kazakstani", while the ethnic Kazak are termed "Kazak".

The larger country sides of Kazakstan in the Northern and Western parts from the East coast of the Caspian Sea, are barren step and semi deserts, and only in the far South East we find the natural fertile part of the country, bordering China and Mongolia and separated from them by the Altai mountains. In the South East is situated the former capital of Almaty (in the Russian era: Alma-Ata). Almaty now has close to 1,500,000 inhabitants, as opposed to 1,100,000 in 1991. In 1998, however, Kazakstani powerful ruler Nursultan Nasarbaev appointed Akmola (former Celinograd) new capital of Kazakstan. Akmola is situated in the Central Northern part of the country, and in 1993 counted a mere 277,000 inhabitants.

Abroad, Kazakstan is widely known especially because of the Soviet nuclear testing area near Semipalatinsk, and the Soviet, now Russian, central space agency Baikonur, situated on the step near the Aral Sea, the drying out of which has caused global concern and attention.

Agricultural production: Beginning already in the inter-war period, an intense agricultural production was established along the Syr Darya river, which - together with the Southern river Amu Darya - supplies the Aral Sea with water. This production consists mainly in wheat for bread, and barley for animal fodder. Furthermore, a smaller production of corn, rice and potatoes exists. The agriculture is completely dependent on the water from the rivers, which is led to the fields through systems of canals and river dams.

The production was structured in the USSR era around big state collective farms, the so-called sovkozes. This agricultural production and the cotton production in Uzbekistan along the river Syr Darya, are the main reasons for the serious problems of the Aral Sea.

In order to understand the situation of Kazakstan today, it is important to note the following:

Before the area, we today know as Kazakstan, was included in the Russian Empire and soon thereafter in the USSR, it was inhabited by nomads. Unlike the Russians, who mainly passed from a feudal system with towns and villages into socialism, the Kazak passed from nomadic families, tribes and clans into the collectivisation's of socialism. The collectivised Kazakstan was largely not created by Kazaks, but by Russians and Germans a.o. The present transition in Kazakstan from socialism to capitalism is especially influenced by this previous history.

The Kazakstani, as inhabitants of a multi-cultural state, do not decide the development in Kazakstan today - the Kazak do. And now the Kazak with their nomadic tradition have to decide how to create a civil society. To some Western observers, the process in Russia and the Baltic countries of subdividing the vast collective farms into smaller private farms, is forwarded at low pace. But the Baltic can realistically hope to regain their former property if their documentation is valid, and we are likely to see something like that in Russia. The Kazak have no property to claim, and therefore have to decide on a national level, whether and how they want to conduct agricultural production at all.

When analysts say they are somewhat surprised that things haven't turned out worse than they have in the former Soviet republics, there are many ways of explaining this. In Kazakstan, one of the explanations is the strong solidarity within families and tribes. No matter how big and how much parted a family may be, there are indisputable obligations between all its members. If one family member earns a good salary, the whole family benefits from it. [This also goes for meat production: the family members in the country see to it that the family in town receives meat.]

The following shows something about the set back in production. The wheat production has gone down from 20 million ton/year to less than 10 million t/year. Barley from 10 million t/year to 6 million t/year. In all, the crops have undergone a set back of more than 50 %. The animal production however, has not seen similar set backs. The country still counts 1,500,000 horses, 9,000,000 cattle, 35,000,000 sheep and goats and around 40,000 camels. The set back in crops is explained by the fact that Kazakstan no longer provides the USSR with wheat. The relatively stable animal production is explained by the fact that the meat has always been meant to go into the Kazakstani market.

The fishery, which mainly takes place in the Caspian Sea, the Balhaz Lake and the many rivers, is also undergoing alterations, even if not as vast as in agriculture. Around 70,000 tons are caught a year.

To illustrate the general state of affairs, one could also mention that the number of passengers on the Kazakstani railways increased by 100,000 from 1991-1993, and has continued to go up, while in the same period the amount of cargo has gone down by 50 %, and continues to go down.

It is thus still an open question whether the Kazak want to take over an agricultural production that can provide more than the home market with crops etc., and it is also an open question whether the Kazakstani, meaning mainly Russians, want to do that and will be allowed to.

Foreign policy: The main interests in terms of the foreign policy of Kazakstan concern Russia. In December 1991, Kazakstan was the last Soviet republic to be independent, and the orientation towards Russia and even Europe is significant. However, the foreign policy and the security policy of the new republic are still to some extent dictated by the historical relationships to China. The Kazak have often fought the Russians in North, but the main conflicts have been with the Chinese in the South. Still now, the Kazak consider China to be the most important thread to their security, even if various agreements have been negotiated with China first of all in trade business, lately concerning Kazakstani oil, which is the most important object of foreign investment in Kazakstan at present day.

Economy: The national currency is Tenge which is exchanged by US $ by approximately 75 Tenge to $ 1. The Kazakstani national economy has met a dramatic set back since 1991. In 1994, the national product per capita was $ 1,110. Towards the end of 1995, a slight increase in economy took place, and the national product is now expected to be approximately $ 1,200 - $ 1,300 per capita.

The Aral Sea was fourth among the largest lakes in the world, situated app. 600 km east of the Caspian Sea. The borderline between Kazakstan in the North and Uzbekistan in the South divides the Sea in the middle in a North-West/South-East direction. The sea covered an area of app. 64,000 km² with an average depth of 30m. In the deepest parts, the depths reached 60 m. Through the island, now peninsula, Kok Aral, the Aral Sea has a natural divide in two parts: the Southern Big Aral, and the Northern Small Aral. The Small Aral then covered app. 13,000 km².

The Aral Sea is a step/desert lake situated in a strong continental climate, with a variation of temperature from 40 degrees plus in the summer time to 30 degrees below zero in the winter. The summer heat caused (and still causes) a vast evaporation, and the evaporation was the reason for the good climate around Aral before the drying out of the sea. The sea was like a very big oasis in the desert. The water balance was maintained because of the vast supply of water from the two rivers Syr Darya and Amu Darya. The two rivers form the only water supply running into the Aral Sea, and they both get their water from the mountains in the East, and from the enormous areas they run through. The river water is fresh with a salinity below 0.7 per mille, while the water in the Aral Sea was brackish with a salinity at app. 9 per mille. The salt in the Aral Sea was caused partly by the vast evaporation, and partly by the fact that the ground water in and around the Aral Sea is salted. (The salted ground water might be explained by an apparent total dry out of the lake, hundreds of years ago.) The lake shores were encircled by tight forests of reed and rush, sometimes stretching several kilometres into the sea. In the sea, a variety of species of fish were found and caught, including species that only existed in the Aral Sea, and among those the famous Aral Sturgeon. Around the sea and in the river delta, big populations of Saika (an antelope), wild boar, wolf, fox, musk rat, turkey, goose and duck were found, and the wildlife had good conditions of living in the sparsely populated areas.

The fishery in the Small Aral before 1960: In the Northern part of the Small Aral is situated the port of Aralsk, which, counting around 35,000 inhabitants, is the biggest town close to Aral. As a port, Aralsk was a well functioning town with a shipbuilding yard, fishery industry and ferry service. In the ship yard, ships of 50-500 ton were build for cargo and fishery on Aral. The Aralsk railway station is situated on the track from Moscow to Tashkent and Almaty, which is the most important railway connection in Central Asia. Cargo from the railway used to be trans-shipped to cargo boats and shipped off southwards to the port of Muynak in Karakalpakistan, Uzbekistan (a region that was part of the Kazak area before the USSR and which is therefore mainly inhabited by Kazak).

The fishery in the Aral Sea had an annual catch of more than 50,000 ton of high quality fish. 13 different species were caught, including carp, SANDART, sturgeon, catfish, and a species of herring. Fishing was the most important profession in the area, and the realisation of fish in the entire Soviet Union meant a stable economical development around the Aral Sea, which meant that it was relatively affluent, when compared to the rest of the USSR. Since hunting, agriculture and live stock breeding were also well functioning, the area was self-sufficient in victuals, and through the realisation of fish, it was supplied with energy and raw materials for a.o. the ship-building industry.

Around the Small Aral were situated 19 smaller and larger fishery communities. These were either self-governing in collective societies (kolhozes) or attached to the main fishery co-operative (sovhoz) in the area. While the sovhozes were directly controlled by the state, the kolhozes were more self-organised in electing leaders and choosing fields of activity.

A kolhoz: Djambul kolhoz is situated app. 60 km west of Aralsk. 1,500 people used to live here. In the natural harbour situated a few kilometers from the village, 12 big fishing vessels were lying at anchor - and they still are, but now in the desert sand. Djambul did not own these vessels, but a number of smaller boats and barges. The fishery was, and still is, vital to Djambul, since it - unlike in the villages near the Syr Darya at the east coast of the sea - is impossible to conduct agriculture. Besides the fishery, Djambul has a production of live stock, mainly horses and camels. Some vegetables can be grown in the small gardens within the areas of the individual houses. The houses are encircled by fences protecting patios with gardens and animals.

The kolhozes themselves took care of the schooling, polio clinics were common, and in some cases even smaller hospitals.

The fishing from the big vessels was conducted at sea, and the fish was sold to the factory in Aralsk. The crew on the vessels was from Djambul and elsewhere, but besides this fishery, a small scale fishery took place, especially in the winter time and in the early spring. In these periods, the climate made it possible to keep the fish, and a special fishing technique on ice was developed , using camels as tractive force (in the severe winter, parts of Small Aral are covered by ice.) The fish that wasn’t consumed locally, was sold to the fishery industry in Aralsk. Fish was as important as meat in the households at the Aral Sea.

A sovhoz: Aralrybprom ("The Aral Fish Factory"), as - like numerous state co-operatives - founded in the mid twenties. The state co-operatives became the most usual forms of organisation of industry and trade in the USSR. The sovhozes were characterised by the leadership of general directors appointed from Moscow. This meant that the directors didn’t necessarily have any connection to the area, where the co-operative was situated, nor any specific knowledge about the production performed. He could be from anywhere, and his appointment was closely linked to his status at the present time.

In Aralsk, Aralrybprom was the largest enterprise, employing several thousands, and forming an indispensable basis of a number of villages, dependant on fishery. Karateren is such a village in the river delta close to the shore, counting around 2,000 inhabitants. The main occupation in the village was fishery, which was controlled by Aralrybprom through agreements with the village administration. The village elects its own mayor (the Akim), but in Karateren as in similar villages, the real power was in the hands of the local director of fishery.

In the central town of Aralsk, the power was mainly centred around the general director of Aralrybprom, and until the mid seventies it was a sign of progress to be appointed general director of the co-operative. Since the collapse of the fishery however, this appointment gradually transformed into a signal of movement downwards in the hierarchy…

In the inter-war period, agricultural production along the Syr Darya was prepared and initiated, with tragic consequences to the Kazak nomadic culture. The Stalin collectivisation programme struck the Kazak harshly, and it is estimated that 1 million Kazak died or fled the area to move to the countries south of Kazakstan.

The Kazak, who remained, did not have the requested knowledge and tradition in agriculture, which is why experts had to be brought from outside. In all, more than 10 million people were moved to Central Asia, many of them by force, for political reasons, and the most of them to Kazakstan that still now counts around 8 million non-Kazak.

After the Second World War, the wheat production was dramatically increased, which was made possible only by the digging of numerous canals and the building of dams across the river. The canals were dug in very simple manners, by simply digging the main and secondary canals directly in the sand. None seemed to notice the importance of establishing pipes or at least cementing the main canals. Draining the fields wasn’t a subject either.

In the season, floodgates were closed, and the water was led directly into the fields, a system which causes a tremendous loss of water. Less than 10 % of the water taken in was directly beneficial to the crop. The rest disappeared down the sandy soil or evaporated.

In the early fifties, the increasing isolation of the USSR made the great union consider it a strategic aim to become self-sufficient in everything, including cotton and victuals. To Kazakstan this meant increased focus in wheat production for bread and vodka.

President Nikita Khrustjev (1953-1964) was personally fascinated by an agriculture in no need of humus, and which could be conducted directly on sandy soil, using only vast supplies of water. Kazakstan and Uzbekistan both covered vast areas of sandy soil, and through both republics ran rivers with immense amounts of water. A programme was launched to make the USSR self-sufficient in wheat and cotton. Cotton needs a warm climate, which is why the cotton production was placed in Uzbekistan along the banks of the Amu Darya. Production of wheat, barley, millet and rice was mainly placed along the Syr Darya river in Kazakstan.

From the mid fifties and up until the late eighties, the total supply of water from the two rivers to the Aral Sea, dropped from 25 km3/year to less than 5 km3/year. 20 km3 is a lot of water… To compare, it is worth noticing that Denmark with its 5 million inhabitants, in households, industry and agriculture uses 0.915 km3 a year (1995). This enormous set back in water supply had catastrophic consequences to the Aral Sea. Beginning in the early sixties, dramatic changes in the catches took place, both in amounts and in the composition of the catches. Shallow areas that used to be sailing water, now had to be avoided. Fishing communities started digging fairways for the vessels deeper, and in consequence of the decreasing water levels, artificial canals were dug out.

But the shore kept receding, the vessels were stranded in the shallow water, and today they are lying helplessly in the desert that replaced the sea, many places more than 60 km away from the present shore. The salinity kept increasing, and the fishery went down until it finally seized existing completely.

 In 1975, fishing stopped in the Small Aral, and Aralsk was a port without a port. The ferry service stopped, the ground water salinity increased, hunting went down, and the climate started undergoing changes, among other reasons because the big forests of reed and rush disappeared, when the water drew back.

In order to maintain the employment in fishing industry, frozen fish was introduced from other parts of the USSR, such as the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. This supply stopped with the Kazakstani independence in 1991.

In the years following 1975, a major "aid"-programme directed by the Kazak vice-minister Tairov aimed at supporting the families around Aral in moving them from the villages in the new desert along the former coast-line. The fishermen were moved to places like Balkhas, Kapchagay, Alakol, Zaysan, all lakes situated 1000-1500 km east of Aral. Others were moved west to the Caspian Sea, and the rest - app. 50 % of a total of 10-15,000 people - were settled in the state collective farms along the Syr Darya.

17 fishery communities in the Small Aral region were abandoned. Cemeteries - an important part of the local culture through generations - were abandoned, and even the houses in many villages disappeared rapidly because of the new climate with sandstorms of increasing power and frequency.

 The Aral Region was declared an "ecological zone", which (to Europeans paradoxically) means an area of ecological disaster, and everybody was offered an "ecological disaster addition" to the salary, pension etc. Since 1991, the disaster "bonus" - consisting in products and money - has been the responsibility of the new government in Almaty, but the aid is rarely paid, and since Aralsk has no significant circulation of money, salaries in Aralsk are very unstable. Only the civil servants in the city council and the police receive fairly stable payments.

Until 1975 the area was relatively affluent, but since then the Aralsk region has been dependent on emergency aid, and today the UN considers the region to be the poorest region in Kazakstan. The little income that reaches the area is mainly from the salt production and from international aid programmes. The weak money economy has caused problems for schooling and social services. The old people of Aralsk frequently gather on the city council square to press the administration for their pensions.

The visible initiatives are mainly small scale trading in the streets, in the market and in cafés. The main activity in Aralsk seems to be moving around less and less values, since the money, resources or initiatives needed to attract values from other places do not exist. Measured by amounts, there are more goods in the market in Aralsk now than in 1991, but these goods do not represent increased affluence, on the contrary - since the goods are of a low quality, usually imported from China or Iran.

The severely reduced fishery production (from 20,000 t/year to 1,500 t/year) is still controlled from above, but now mainly by in-effective leaders, who do not decide where, when and how fishing is conducted. The little fishery that still exists, is conducted in wintertime and in the early spring, because the cold is needed to keep the fish, and when it is to be sold. The fishery takes place in small lakes east of Aral and in the Syr Darya river itself. In the spring and autumn, some fishing brigades are situated at the Balkhas Lake and at other lakes in eastern Kazakstan. Recently, however, this possibility has also been denied the Aral fishermen, since authorities in for instance Balkhas have denied them access to the lake.

The catches are not realised for money, but changed to flour, gasoline, margarine etc. (in October 1996, the fishermen told us that they hadn’t seen actual money as salary since 1993). Sometimes the fishermen receive provisions for their work, sometimes nothing. The main buyer of the fish is the space agency centre Baikonur, where 70,000 Russian military troops and workers are situated. From Baikonur gasoline, engines and margarine are offered in exchange of the fish. Some fish is smoked and sold on the railway track. On this railway, which is very important to the town, ordinary people are selling dried and smoked fish and a variety of other products. The train trades mean that a considerable amount of women and children on a daily basis are trying to realise their goods to travellers with a limited ability to buy. In this respect you could say that the families within the previous six years have had to concentrate less on schooling and households, and seem to be passing into a situation where the men "organise" the goods, and the women and children are trying to realise them. It is a common joke in Kazakstan that the independence in 1991 really demarked the "independence from salary": since then it has been up to each individual to earn enough to survive.

Aralsk and Little Aral today: It should be beyond discussion that the negative development described above, should be changed. One of the ways to change direction is to create a focus on the natural and human resources that do exist in the area:

The area is rich on salt that can be exported, and the salt industry provides a lot of employment.

But salt is a cheap product and therefore doesn’t bring much money to the area. Furthermore, the salt is an obvious consequence of the disaster that struck the area with the drying of the sea. An increase in value might be forwarded by processing the salt. The salt that is sold at present time, is still dirty and very dark.

An ambitious project wants to build a dam between Small and Big Aral. The project has been coming up for several years, and in an Aral Sea conference held in Paris in June 1994, the UN and the World Bank reserved the money needed to undertake the building of the dam - on certain conditions that apparently haven’t yet been fulfilled. The budget amounts to $ 42 million, and the dam is to be build across a natural flow of water from north to south, cutting off the Big Aral from the water supply of the Syr Darya. Today, a deep canal leads the water of Syr Darya more or less directly into the Big Aral. The dam, a vast 21 km cement construction with sluices, is to be supported with 50-70 km of dikes.

The project has the special attention of the mayor of Aralsk. Several times he has taken the initiative to close the canal with dirt, sand and reed and rush. Today the mayor is keeping 20-30 excavators and trucks busy, working on the provisional dam. In the season of cultivation and growing inside the country, the dam holds tight, and the water level in Small Aral is increasing, which lowers the salinity. During autumn and winter, the water level is rapidly increasing, and in the spring, when huge amounts of melting water reach the Aral Sea, the dam collapses, and the construction can start over. But this work has shown that the project is viable, and that the fresh water quickly influences the situation in Small Aral.

The dam should ensure that the water from Syr Darya doesn’t run directly through Small Aral and into Big Aral, but stays in the north to make the Small Aral return to a state of fresh or brackish water, like before 1975. Small Aral as a fresh water lake would mean an area of around 10,000 km2, which means that the port in Aralsk would be reactivated, and that other natural harbours could again be used. The fresh water would also further a rise of the nature that existed, before the salt destroyed the fresh water fauna and flora in and around the sea. This again would improve the climate in the Aralsk Region. The dam provides employment in itself, and in order to even transport construction material to the sea, new roads much be build and existing improved, especially in the south eastern parts. An improved infra structure at the delta would further the possibilities of establishing a fishery on flounder in the Big Aral, since it would facilitate the transport of boats, trucks and fish to and from Aralsk. And the fishery on flounder is the very heart of this NGO-project: