Muynak was once a thriving port on the Aral Sea, but today it sits on the edge of a bitter, salty desert. Sand dunes are strewn with the rusted, hollow hulls of a fishing fleet that once sailed high above on the surface of Central Asia’s fountain of life.
Things began changing 30 years ago when Stalinist planners began diverting the Aral water source to irrigate the world’s largest cotton belt. No one, however, envisioned the environmental disaster that would result. Weather has become more extreme, the growing season has been shortened by two month, and 80% of the region’s farmland has been ruined by salt storms that sweep in off the day seabed.
What happened at Muynak parallels the history of the
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