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VZCZCXRO6939
OO RUEHIK
DE RUEHTA #1953/01 3070645
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 030645Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY ASTANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6747
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE 2106
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 1600
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 1477
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 2178
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 1112
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFAAA/DIA WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC 1666
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC 1525
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RHMFIUU/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RHMFISS/CDR USTRANSCOM SCOTT AFB IL
RUEHAST/USOFFICE ALMATY 1973
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ASTANA 001953
SIPDIS
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, OES/PCI
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON SENV KZ
SUBJECT: FIRST INTERNATIONAL ARAL SEA 2009 CONFERENCE
ASTANA 00001953 001.3 OF 004
¶1. SUMMARY: The Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg
hosted the First International 2009 Aral Sea Conference on October
11-15, with the participation of leading scientists from Russia,
Central Asia, Europe, Israel, and the United States. Zoological
Institute Director Pugachev said the current desiccation appears to
be a natural process that has been accelerated by intense
irrigation. Revival of the Aral Sea is highly unlikely without
regional agreements on the social, economic, and political problems
in the region. The International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea,
Karlikhanov, predicted the eastern portion of the large (southern)
Aral Sea will completely disappear in 2010. Less than 10% of river
waters eventually flow into the Aral Sea. If the existing
"non-rational" use of water continues, Central Asia will face a
severe water deficit beginning in 2020. Restoration of the northern
Aral Sea is the only positive development. Eurasian Development
Bank Sarsembekov said the Aral Sea is an ecological catastrophe, and
Central Asia now faces the resulting political consequences.
Competition for water resources will increase, and the Aral Sea's
future depends on development of a joint resource management
program. Western Michigan University Professor and renowned Aral
Sea expert Micklin said increasing irrigation far beyond the "level
of sustainability" primarily caused the Aral Sea's modern recession,
the most serious in the past several thousand years. It is
extremely unlikely that the Aral Sea will ever return to its size in
¶1960. The partial restoration of the northern Aral Sea is a
success, but it needs to be continued before one can say it has been
fully restored. It is theoretically possible to restore the western
Aral Sea, but much more study and investigation is needed to
determine its worth. Zoological Institute and noted Aral Sea expert
Aladin said the Ministry of Water Resources of the Soviet Union
"killed" the Aral Sea. The Conference issued the St. Petersburg
"Declaration on The Aral Sea," summarized in the cable. END
SUMMARY.
REGIONAL AGREEMENTS NEEDED, BUT TIME IS SHORT
¶2. The Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg hosted the
First International 2009 Aral Sea Conference on October 11-15, with
the participation of leading scientists from Russia, Central Asia,
Europe, Israel, and the United States. Zoological Institute of the
Russian Academy of Sciences Director Oleg Pugachev opened the
Conference with a general overview of the Aral Sea's past recessions
and revivals. He said the current desiccation appears to be a
natural process accelerated by intense irrigation. (NOTE: The
common word for agricultural activity throughout the conference was
"irrigation," which this drafter will subsequently use. END NOTE.)
He believed the Aral Sea could revive again if one only considered
purely natural factors. However, this return is highly unlikely
without regional agreements on the social, economic, and political
problems in the region. Unfortunately, it will be almost impossible
to reach such agreements, or the process will be too slow, to permit
the eventual restoration of the Aral Sea to its pre-1960 level.
SEVERE WATER DEFICIT IN 2020
¶3. The International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea Executive
Committee Member Torekhan Karlikhanov said the Aral Sea has rapidly
desiccated in the past 40 years. If this trend continues, the
eastern portion of the large (southern) Aral Sea, which is already
almost gone, will completely disappear in 2010. He added that an
incomplete water resource management system, environmental pollution
and loss of biodiversity, the absence of a regional program to adopt
measures to ameliorate climate change, the inability to address and
"solve" various social problems such as outward migration and
unemployment, the lack of adequate drinking water and sanitation,
and high salinity in the dust that hangs over the region affect the
Aral Sea. Karlikhanov said 91% of all water from the Amur- and
Syr-Darya rivers is used for various purposes, such as irrigation,
urban use, and hydro-electric power generation, and less than 10% of
the river waters eventually flow into the Aral Sea. Overall,
agricultural productivity per cubic meter volume of water used is
decreasing due to the "non-rational" use of water. If this
continues, he warned, Central Asia will face a severe water deficit
beginning in 2020, as per capita water resources decline. Central
ASTANA 00001953 002.3 OF 004
Asia's biggest problem currently is coordination of energy
generation in the winter and water release for irrigation in the
spring and summer.
NORTH ARAL SEA RESTORATION
IS THE SINGLE POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT
¶4. Karimhanov said that Kazakhstan, with World Bank assistance,
undertook to restore the northern Aral Sea, and completed the first
stage of the project in 2005. A 13 kilometer long dam that
separates the small (northern) Aral Sea from the large (southern)
Aral Sea resulted. The water level then increased from 30 meters
above sea level to 42 meters, and the sea, once more than 100
kilometers away from the former port city of Aralsk, is now only 23
kilometers away. The second phase, not yet implemented, will raise
the water level higher and let the sea return to its original banks.
Fish stocks are thriving and fishermen are now returning to work.
THE ARAL SEA IS AN ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE
¶5. Eurasian Development Bank Representative Tulegen Sarsembekov
said there are now more than one million cubic kilometers of desert
in Central Asia, and although only 5% of the land is considered
"oasis"-like, it contains most of the heavily populated zones. The
Aral Sea, once the world's fourth largest inland body of water, has
been steadily shrinking since the 1960s. During the Soviet era, the
government planned to divert water from Russia to Central Asia, but
Gorbachev "killed" this plan in 1986. Sarsembekov said arable lands
have increased dramatically, and population centers have grown
considerably in the region, including industry. As a result, the
existing water cannot adequately supply the needs. (NOTE: One
participant interrupted and insisted that the problem is not an
increase in population but poor agriculture planning and an increase
in irrigation and power generation. END NOTE.) According to
Sarsembekov, the Aral Sea is an ecological catastrophe, of which
Central Asia now faces the political consequences. Competition for
water resources will increase, in part due to the failure to regard
the Aral Sea zone as a complete zone, and in part due to the fact
that countries have tended to solve their problems independently.
He said the future of the Aral Sea depends on the ability of all
countries in the region to develop a joint resource management
program that gives adequate water resources to all. A charter of
cooperative partnership must be drafted so that all benefit from
resources.
CURRENT DESICCATION WORST IN SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS
¶6. Western Michigan University Professor and renowned Aral Sea
expert Philip Micklin rhetorically asked whether the Aral Sea has a
future. He noted that the Aral Sea had desiccated and refilled
several times during the past 10,000 years, with the changing course
of the Amu- and Syr-Darya rivers as the major cause. However, since
the 1960s, the water level has dropped primarily due to an increase
in water use for irrigation far beyond the "level of
sustainability." Micklin said the modern recession of the Aral Sea
is the most serious in the past several thousand years. If it
continues at its current pace, it will be the worst in the past ten
million years. It is extremely unlikely that the Aral Sea will ever
return to its 1960 size. He noted the success of the partial
restoration of the northern Aral Sea, but it must continue before
one can call it fully restored. The partial restoration of the
north Aral Sea cost at least $84 million, but the investment appears
worthwhile. While scientists should continue to investigate the
northern Aral Sea's partial restoration, he said, preservation of
the eastern Aral Sea appears hopeless, because it has practically
disappeared.
¶7. According to Micklin, it is very important to preserve the
remainder of the Amu- and Syr-Darya river delta systems, their
ecosystem, and biodiversity. Donors should also invest in programs
to increase the health and welfare of the region's residents. He
called restoration of the Aral Sea in the near future difficult due
to the enormous amount of water and huge decrease in irrigation
required, which is highly unlikely. Up to now, climate change has
not been a major factor in the Aral Sea's desiccation, but it will
ASTANA 00001953 003.3 OF 004
certainly become more of one in the future. Micklin asserted that
restoration of the western Aral Sea is theoretically possible, but
would need much more study and investigation to determine its worth.
Siberian river diversion is a very doubtful solution, he said,
because of its high cost and complication. Plus, strong opposition
to this idea exists inside Russia, and international support from
donors is lacking.
ARAL SEA IS DEAD DUE TO SOVIET-ERA IRRIGATION POLICIES
¶8. Russian Academy of Sciences Zoological Institute Professor,
noted Aral Sea expert, and Conference-organizer Nikolay Aladin said
that, in spite of its high level of salinity, all the Aral Sea zones
are still "alive" with fish species, invertebrates, and flora, but
their ecosystem differs from before. Many of the introduced species
carried infections and parasites, and some devoured all the
plankton, with a negative impact on the existing environment. "Who
killed the Aral Sea?" Aladin asked several times during the
conference. "I'll tell you who killed the Aral Sea. It was the
Ministry of Water Resources of the Soviet Union!" He said that,
even considering natural changes, the Aral Sea would not have
disappeared if not for the extreme impact of the current system of
irrigation created during the Soviet era. One can now say, he
stressed, that the Aral Sea as a geological object disappeared 20
years ago. "The Aral Sea is dead! Long live the Aral Sea!" In
effect, two Aral Seas exist, small and large. Fishing is now
restricted to the northern Aral Sea, because the western Aral Sea is
too salty. In 2010, the eastern Aral Sea, now almost dried up, will
completely disappear, and only the western Aral Sea and Tshchebas
Bay will remain.
ARAL SEA CONFERENCE DECLARATION
¶9. The Conference issued a St. Petersburg "Declaration on The Aral
Sea," noting that the Aral Sea has undergone unprecedented shrinking
and salinization since the 1960s, which negatively impacts the sea
and nearby inhabitants. The Aral Sea's current desiccation results
primarily from the expansion of irrigation in the sea's drainage
basin during the Soviet era that exceeded sustainability, which led
to a marked decline of river inflow to the sea. Global warming,
while real, has not majorly caused the Aral's desiccation since the
1960s, but its importance will increase in the future.
¶10. The Conference Declaration states that diversion (e.g.
redirection) of Siberian rivers southward to the Aral Sea Basin or
pumping water from the Caspian to the Aral cannot realistically
solve water problems in Central Asia because of their expensiveness,
complication, requirement of complex international agreements, and
serious potential environmental consequences. It recommends instead
a focus on local and regional solutions to these key issues, such as
improved efficiency of water use in i
rrigation and efforts to
preserve and partially restore remaining parts of the Aral Sea.
¶11. The Conference Declaration optimistically states that "reports
of the Aral Sea's death are premature." The Small (north) Aral Sea
has been partially restored. Although the Eastern Basin of the
Large Aral is lost, the Western Basin can be preserved, as can major
parts of the Syr and Amu Dar'ya deltas. The Aral Sea of the 1960s
is gone, but preservation of a much smaller Aral Sea consisting of
two sizable lakes that have ecological and economic value remains
feasible. Furthermore, in the more distant future, substantially
increased inflow to the sea and restoration of the Aral close to its
former size may be possible. Such developments happened in the past
and could be possible again. (COMMENT: This optimistic note was a
point of contention at the conference. The declaration is a
graceful compromise between the skeptics of the Aral Sea's return
and those who want to downplay the human factor and the threat that
the current global warming trend poses to the region. This observer
would caution not to put too much hope on the likelihood of its
return. END COMMENT.)
¶12. The Declaration concludes that future study of the Aral Sea and
its surrounding region should be a balance of theoretical and
applied science and involve scientists from different disciplines
ASTANA 00001953 004.3 OF 004
and countries. Special efforts should be made to attract and engage
younger-generation scientists and researchers to Aral Sea problems
in order to secure long-term, scientific commitment and continued
international dialogue. The International Fund for Saving the Aral
Sea should co-operate with leading scientists all over the World,
including Russia (NOTE: This last phrase required some negotiation.
END NOTE).
¶13. COMMENT: While some of the scientific community's opinions
diverged, the majority concluded that the current desiccation of the
Aral Sea is a man-made disaster caused by the Soviet Union's
intensification of "irrigation" (e.g., cotton production in
Uzbekistan) in the early 1960s. Kazakhstan's effort to restore the
Northern Aral Sea was the only positive note in the conference, but
the consensus is that this renewal cannot serve as a model to revive
either the western or eastern Aral Seas. In addition, climate
change may affect the future viability of the Aral Sea (including
the restored north Aral Sea) if the Amur-Darya and Syr-Darya rivers
begin to lose water because of receding glaciers. Additional
hydroelectric projects may also further reduce water flow,
eventually threatening even the Northern Aral Sea. Nevertheless,
while donor agencies (including the U.S. government) may still find
opportunities to fund various cooperative scientific and
humanitarian projects, reviving the Aral Sea is not likely to be
among them. END COMMENT.
HOAGLAND
Wikileaks: Kazakhstan 