Cotton, Cotton Everywhere so not a Drop to Drink…

By Louise Selisny
What are you wearing right now? If it’s a cotton garment then there is a strong chance that it was produced using cotton grown and picked in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is the world’s second largest exporter of raw cotton and the picking season is now well underway. Most people will associate the Uzbek cotton industry with forced child labour and unfair monopoly practises – important issues both – but often under reported is the enormous environmental impact our quest for ever cheaper cotton is having.

Karakalpakstan is an autonomous region in the west of Uzbekistan and is home to the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea was once heralded as the ‘fish basket of Central Asia’ and could reliably account for 20% of the annual catch of the Soviet Union. The now dusty little town of Muynak was formerly the proud focal point of this great epicentre. As well as being a strategically important launching post for Soviet Union Allied Forces in the Second World War, Muynak was also once a thriving fishing port. It harboured an active fleet of 300 fishing vessels and supported the employment of around 10,000 workers in one fish canning factory alone. What’s more, the inspirational beauty of Muynak constituted a mecca for many significant Soviet Union artists and writers, including the Ukrainian rebel poet Taras Shevchenko who crafted some of his most important works whilst overlooking its bountiful shore.

Now, whilst many fishing centres across the world have witnessed a decline or loss in fish, Muynak has witnessed a loss of its sea. The Aral Sea has quite literally fled its shore and has left a sad twisted row of metal giants slowly rusting in a ships graveyard. To get a glimpse of the Aral now you have to use a ‘good strong Russian’ jeep and drive nearly 160km over sun scorched sea-bed. The only signs to evidence the once mighty waves are tiny sea-shells that now lie scattered and stranded across the yawning desert gulf. This pained earth belches forward over 43 million tonnes of dust each year and is responsible for a raft of respiratory related illnesses in the region including drug resistant Tuberculosis.

As well as the dust from the sea-bed, toxic chemicals make their way to Muynak via what’s left of the incoming waterways. Leached agrochemicals, including those banned in most other countries, washes into Muynak every day. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has found significant levels of organochlorines, including PCBs, dioxins and DDT in everyday samples of beef, fish, eggs, milk, potato and rice. The NATO Science Programme found that this toxicity has led Karakalpaks to have DNA mutations 3.5 times the average as well as the highest rate of oesophagus cancer in the world. The people of Muynak have a life expectancy over ten years lower than the national average. The Secretariat for the Complex Social Protection of Family, Mothers and Children states that the region has the highest rate of infant mortality in the country and a Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) report highlighted direct links with the environmental pollution and escalating cases of people suffering with hypertension, heart disease, anaemia, various cancers and kidney disease. It can be seen that both internal and external independent bodies concur that pollution caused by the cotton industry is literally killing Karakalpaks.

Perhaps one of the most poignant facets to this crisis is that it was man-made. Unlike most countries which have rivers that lead to the sea, Uzbekistan has rivers that flow towards and drain into the interior. The Syr Dar’ya and Amu Dar’ya Rivers feed into the Aral Sea - which is not in fact a sea but a large freshwater lake. In the 1960s Soviet Planners began to divert these watercourses in order to irrigate cotton crops. The Environmental Justice Foundation estimates that on average 20,000 litres of water is extracted to produce 1 kilogram of cotton – or 14,000m3 per harvested hectare. The effect of the diversions has been catastrophic, causing the once world’s forth largest body of water to haemorrhage 90% of its volume and nearly 75% of its surface area. The Aral Sea now covers fewer than 18,000 square kilometres - less than a tenth of its original size. The water that does remain is both hyper-saline and heavily polluted by toxic agricultural chemicals used in cotton cultivation. The World Bank also highlighted the bitter irony which sees almost 60% of the diverted water lost in the maze of inefficient, decrepit and broken irrigation systems – neither reaching its intended destination or the thirsty plains of the Aral desert.

This ecological disaster is particularly affecting the people of Muynak and the Karakalpak region as a whole as the Aral Sea once tempered the climate in the area. Due to the massive reduction in the Aral Sea the local climate has been dramatically altered. Today the crop growing season has reduced by two whole months, the winters are much colder and the summers much hotter and drier. This has created a negative feed-back cycle. Hotter summers create more heat that evaporates more of the remaining water. What’s more, the waters have begun to stagnate, with deeper saltier water being unable to mix the less salty top water. Consequently, the top water is bearing the brunt of the sun’s heat and thus being evaporated even more quickly. So the climate gets even hotter and growing seasons further reduce. This has led to an increase in the number of cattle in the region as local farmers attempt to mitigate the situation they find themselves in. This is increasing soil erosion as the already sparse vegetation is being overgrazed and consumed. This both reduces soil productivity and increases the amount of toxic dust that is blown over the region as there is less vegetation left to bind the fragile earth. People get sicker and the land more degraded. And, lest we forget, this is all a man-made problem – the rivers upstream are being diverted to irrigate thirsty cotton crops. Cotton that is then sold cheaply to make low-cost products for sale in countries like the UK. So how is that cotton shirt you a wearing feeling now? A little dirtier perhaps?

However, although there is much destruction and disease in the region there is also much hope. The little town of Muynak is not dead and nor have its inhabitants given up, quite the contrary in fact. I was lucky enough to be invited to the annual Independence Day celebration. My day began with an offering of peace and a handshake from a three year boy who was intrigued by my fair skin and western clothes. The whole community was congregated in the banner bedecked town square. Women dressed in their finest attire with golden thread that glistened in the sun chattered in groups as children flew kites and ate ice-cream. Everyone took their turn to dance in splendid traditional costume – particularly striking were the little girls who stole the show with their charming choreography and outfits fashioned from the Uzbek flag. Children teemed around me in order to practise the English they were learning in school as well as laugh at my flailing Uzbek. It was a wonderful day completed with a visit to the Nukus Museum of Art, a veritable treasure trove, containing a spectacular assortment of 1920s and 1930s avant-garde Russian and Uzbek art. Wondrous antidotes to the Communist inspired School of Socialist Realism grace every inch of space and reflect a people of passion, vibrancy and expressionism.
It was clear to me that the people of Muynak share the fighting spirit of the Karakalpak region and with assistance from the international community they are taking steps to address the environmental problems that have been thrust upon them. One of the most exciting projects is that funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. They sponsor the German Society for Technical Cooperation to work in conjunction with Uzbek scientists to strategically plant bushes and fodder plants, including the Black Saxaul, Salsola Richteri and Calligonum Caput-Medusae. This dedicated coalition has so far covered 27000 hectares with vegetation. Zinovy Novitsky is the project’s scientific adviser and he explained how, “forests create oxygen, kill microbes, and improve climate and landscape.” The main improvement in the case of the Aral Sea bed is that the roots of the shrubs grow parallel to the ground, thereby binding the mass of sand, dust and salt. The body of the shrub growing above ground helps to prevent erosion and also operates as windbreaker, decreasing wind velocity on the surface by up to 70%. Put simply, these shrubs and trees act as a barrier line of defence against the toxic dust storms and the debilitating diseases they bring with them.
This initiative also brings vital jobs to the area and workers assisting with the planting earn about $80 US dollars a month. It is estimated that to make a lasting difference the team will need to cover about 600,000 hectares – with limited funds the team are currently working at a rate of about 30,000 hectares a year. It is hoped that within 5 years or so the shrubs with produce seeds that will be spread by the wind thereby making the task much easier as man and Mother Nature work together. The project is costing about $150-200 per hectare in monetary terms but will doubtless pay immeasurable dividends on completion.
So it can be seen that the little town of Muynak is not so hopeless, but hoping. Hoping that the international community will follow the German vanguard and pledge assistance where it can before all is consumed by and lost to the desert forever.
Note: This article has been shortlisted for "1000 $ writing contest ".
You may also be interested in


The copyright of the article, "Cotton, Cotton Everywhere so not a Drop to Drink… ," in "Interesting Health Articles" is owned by Louise Selisny . Permission to republish this article in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Please consider subscribing to my feed RSS. You can also subscribe by Email and have new articles sent directly to your inbox.