The Aral Sea (continued)

“The drying up of the Aral Sea is considered by many environmentalists to be the biggest environmental disaster of all time, a disaster that might only be eclipsed by the total meltdown of Earth's Ice Caps” (Ring.)

The Aral Sea

Many people have not even heard of this huge disaster. They do not know that this sort of catastrophe could even be possible. When men try to change the environment and the ecosystem around them, they can affect everything and ruin what has been created. People’s lives are changed as well as animals and plants. Things die as a result of this alteration and some things that are broken and wrecked in the process can never be fixed again. The large fish farming industry was also destroyed through this disaster. No suitable aquaculture projects have yet to replace it. As one Uzbek physician said: “We may very well be witnessing the death of a nation as a result of human folly” (De Villiers.) How could a sea this huge disappear so quickly? Since that day in April 2004, when I stood on the banks of what was once the Aral Sea, the answer has become clearer to me: only under the hands of men could such a disaster occur.