Uzbekistan

The Aral Desert

Makshet Tokhtybaev

I am retired now, but I have spent almost all of my life working in the fields. I have seen many changes in this area, but the biggest would be the disappearance of the surrounding forest.

The trees used to protect us from the wind and provide us with food such as berries, fruits and even wild pheasants. Nowadays these things are hard to find, as the forest has been cleared for cotton production.

Cotton growing is undertaken in the whole of Uzbekistan on directions from the government. It is profitable for the government, but not as profitable for us as growing fruit and vegetables. From my childhood until just last year, I grew fruit and vegetables on my land. Now I have to grow cotton and sell it to the government. We make money on the sale, but I still prefer to grow fruits and vegetables. The cotton is more labour intensive and of course, you can't eat it. In the past we had enough fruit to eat and enough to sell.

Even if I am not able to grow what I choose, I would still say that my life and the lives of others around Nukus have improved. We now have cars and other machines, new roads and new buildings. Our houses are more beautiful and we have greater access to a wider variety of foods. The markets today are full of amazing things, while when I was a child we just ate mainly bread and whatever was grown in the village.

I think that we have been irrigating too much land and as a consequence we have drained the Aral Sea . This has had an impact on a lot of people's lives and many waters are now polluted and saline. I worry about this as the winds now carry the salts, chemicals and sands from the Aral, which I believe are having an impact on people's health. Perhaps if we still had the trees we would be more protected.