I remember seeing it on the map when I was young in the 1950s, I sincerely hope it continues to return to its former size, such a devastating shame it was destroyed.
Yikes, this is going to trigger the lefties. Global warming (or climate change or what ever it goes by now), carbon footprint, and anti-capitalism is their religion.
Ah the "straw man argument". As the program and others have said human mismanagement was the cause. Fact. This doesn't prove or disprove the existence of climate change.
He's talking about the guy at around 11 minutes. He was speaking (mostly) English, and the translation, whilst more-or-less true to the spirit of what he was saying, was not the same as what he was saying.
I wish these people all the best. I believe that they should demand a return of a minimum flow from their original rivers. The world would support them in that effort.
That's the issue The same thing will happen in Laos Thailand Cambodia even now the Chinese control the water flow and there is significant changes to the water flow
@@markmitchell450 One thing at a time. Pick your battles. The demand concerning the Arak sea is definitive, clearly understood issues and history. Please, no surfing!
"their original rivers." I wonder what that means? The two rivers responsible for filling the Aral sea do no originate in Uzbekistan. The headwaters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers originate elsewhere. Just as The United States controls the headwaters of the Colorado River and has built the Hoover Dam (and others) which have had a negative impact on the flow of water into Mexico. China will never give up Tibet for very sound strategic reasons, one of which is water. The Tibetan Himalayas hold the headwaters of China's Yellow and Yangtse rivers, the Brahmaputra (flows into Bangladesh), the Ganges and Indus (India), and the Mekong (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand). Whoever controls Tibet will have China by the scrotum. That won't be happening any time ever. The ongoing water dispute between Egypt (which historically has claimed most of the Nile) and Ethiopia (controls one of the Nile headwaters and is constructing a hydro dam) is another example of countries in control of the headwaters having impact on downstream countries. This century and the next will most likely see water wars on a global scale unless countries are willing to share the economic benefits and the economic hardships.
China planted a 15km wide wall of trees to stop the Gobi desert from expanding and it's working. There is a similar initiative in Africa to stop the southern part of Sahara from expanding, but it is less of a success, because it's Africa.
It’s a small fraction of the original lake! Better than nothing you might say in the same way that 1/5 is greater than zero but it’s still less than 1 (complete restoration).
Am in tears..... For in west Africa a sea /a lake I have never seen is fast disappearing. That I know and so will economic life Sad Sad. .....Lake Chad In Ghana we are not better off our waters are shrinking. Worse they are being polluted by the illegal gold mines. So heart breaking
I an so sad for you, I do not know what to say to you Governments do not care about people they just exploit, them. Best Wishes I hope as this post is a year old that life is getting better not worse.
I remember as a kid seeing pictures of rusting boats on dry land where the Aral Sea used to be and thinking there was something really creepy about them.
Whoever did those subs is an idiot. The guy's English isn't bad, especially considering he lives in the heart of central Asia. You can understand every word he says.
@@joaobastos6435 - This is ruining fresh underground water as sea water intrudes. This is happening in Pacific Island nations and the Nile delta region of Egypt and no doubt elsewhere. The rising sea levels are directly affecting more and more nations, Bangladesh being one. Tens if not hundreds of millions currently live along coastal zones that will eventually be flooded as sea level rises. But that will be a problem future generations will have to face and somehow solve, I do not envy them.
@@georgensal It's supposed to be a friggin documentary, not a work of fiction. I expect them to provide an accurate translation for everything. As soon as you start 'correcting' some parts, the integrity of the whole work becomes threatened.
It's important that the elders remember an environment suitable for wild life. Perhaps the young will catch a vision and learn from the mistakes of previous generations.
That won't happen until they OVERTHROW the TYRANT running Kazakhstan for 27 yrs! That is why WE in the USA have to VOTE OUT OF OFFICE our own TYRANT --Fuhrer Drumpf!
I am a hydrogeologist. I have been visiting the Aral Lake several years ago. The only and major reason for the dissemination of the lake was the extensive abstraction of irrigation water upstream. This has lead to extensive saltification of soils and groundwater in Usbekistan which in turn reduces meanwhile the cultivation of cotton. To my understanding, the separation of both parts of the former lake does not make sense. The only chance for lonfgtern recovery might be the enhanced inflow of both, Sirdarja and Amourdarja river.
7:06 Poor kid. Sisters get to go to school and do something with themselves and he's gotta stay and fish. Props to him for putting his own interests to the side and helping his parents 👏
4 роки тому+1
Well done France (and I'm speaking as a Brit...) Excellent film and full of interest and information.Thank you once more for a really entertaining look at an almost 'lost' part of our world.
How can we trust that your subtitled translations are accurate when your English subtitles for the surgeon speaking ENGLISH are clearly not what he is saying? When subtitling, you don't get creative license. Print what is said. Make any comment you want from your own so-called "reporter" just don't show a local talking with bogus subtitles. POOR JOURNALISM IS A PANDEMIC.
They built a dam that makes sure the water doesn't cover the surface area as it did before. And since evaporation is linear to surface area, the amount of evaporation is kept low and thus the lake grows until it reaches a new equilibrium. It's not rocket science, they litterally said 'we've only managed to save the northern part of the sea', so it's not the enitire sea that's returned, only a small portion of it. I just hope that portion is big enough to save the local area from dust bowls and salination.
The sea will fill up because rivers are just one way of moving water around. Underneath the ground there will be water moving though the earth. The sea will fill up only as high as the water table, but that is better than nothing.
This is the obvious solution but it requires some local champions with a vision and a goal. Obviously they need to restore the flow of those two rivers. Since another republic is involved, they also need smart diplomacy. These are nice people but they lived under communism for so long and the bureaucratic way of life still lingers.
RS_Trickser for now the northern part only is better than the entire sea being gone. Will take a lot of money and a not corrupt government to actually reroute the rivers to fully fix the sea.
Just started watching this and something caught my attention that has nothing to do with the subject of the video. Just after the two minute mark. The condition of the highway. Its in great shape. Much better than what I have seen of US highways in other vids.
Wear and tear on roads are a factor you know. Those roads probably don't get as much heavy traffic on them or semi hauling like the U.S. roads you maybe comparing against. Those same decent roads could also be a minority in the country in a larger sample size. I would remain skeptical and not make quick judgement on this observation.
@@jungoogie You understand that you are contradicting yourself. If the roads have less economic value the government has less incentive to keep it in shape as it looks.
The majority of the US has really nice highways. Some areas that get a lot of freeze thaw cycle's do deteriorate very quickly. Especially with the amount of salt we spread on our roads in the winter.
I remember the Soviets, starting the diversions, and the consequent reduction of the Aral Sea. Trying to refill the sea, will take a long time, though congratulations, I guess are in order, for attempting to fix, what wasn't broken, to start with.
I really suggest you to take a look to "Bald and Bankrupt" channel, he travels all across the ex-USSR countries and shows what is lasting of the USSR period (both the positive and the negative things), it's really enlighting to learn something about all those "unknown" countries
This is not our fault, but Uzbekistan, there actively grow cotton and rice, Kazakhstan did everything to save this sea ,Uzbekistan does not want to join this large-scale project, Because it requires a lot of money and they do not have the money.Kazakhstan together with the World Bank makes this project
"My four daughters can go to university and get married in the city. But my son has to stay here to fish." Either the best or the worst example of emancipation.
Actually, this is a Kazakh national tradition. If a family has the only son and the rest of the children are daughters, the only or the youngest son creates his own family living with his parents to back them when they get old. Daughters and elder sons normally leave root family. Our older people never stay alone living the rest of their lives.
its the first step in the emancipation. The women are now allowed to get education but the tradition of men taking their fathers jobs still is there. The next step would be euqality in this field
They built the damn so they could continue to use the rivers water to farmland. Just putting the river back into place would leave alot of farmland unavailable and hunger would greet them i guess
That would be an easy enough situation if the Soviet Union still existed, and if the political will was there. Unfortunately, the reason the Soviets decided to divert the water in the first place was to irrigate desert land to grow cotton. Now several different countries are involved. Kazakhstan is committed to saving their part of the sea, but their decision to build a dam and cut the North Aral Sea off from the Southeast and Southwest basins was after Uzbekistan showed a complete unwillingness to redirect any of its water back into the sea. Uzbekistan has become dependent on the cotton that they grow with the diverted water, and has no political will to save the Aral Sea. In fact, they have decided to plant thousands of small bushes that can live in salty soil on the former sea bed, hoping that these plants will attract rain and stop dust storms. And in some cases, the decision cannot be made by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan alone, because the rivers involved have their source in yet third or fourth countries, so diversion back to the sea could impact at least four different nations. It ought to be easy enough, in theory, but asking countries to give up jobs and revenue to save a lake is a hard sell, particularly if the countries are as poor as most former Soviet republics.
I watched a previous video about the Aral Sea, there was apparently a very profitable fishing industry for sturgeon caviar which was exported to the US. Cotton seems to be a crop that should only be grown where there is ample water to irrigate it without negatively impacting everything around it.
I remember the original Aral Sea, before the Soviets redirected the flows, of 2 rivers. Last I had heard was that the Aral Sea, had dried up entirely, leaving the toxic Salts, as mentioned. It is Good, to see an attempt being made to return the Aral Sea, to its former glory - that will take longer to achieve, than it took to dehydrate the Sea & turn it to desert. Trust, that the refilling of the Sea, continues, and reaches its former levels & abundance.
The USSR put their biological weapons testing facility on an island in the Aral Sea. Vozrozhdeniye Island is often called Anthrax island. BTW- it's not an island anymore.
I'm amazed at how this story almost exactly mirrors the Salton Sea in California: A lake dying and drying up due to diverting water for irrigation; people suffering health issues, fish die offs, etc. Even had a military base and all. Except they tested nukes and other things at the Naval Station there, not biochemical warfare. Only real difference is that the Salton Sea was a dried up prehistoric lake bed before an accident formed it again in the early 1900's.
@@joemomma506 The Salton Sea was formed when a aqueduct from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valleys busted in the 1930s. It started to dry up again after they fixed the breach. Ironically it was the recent diverting of water away from agriculture to the cities that increased the rate. Less agricultural runoff = faster decline.
This might just be me projecting, but I see 2 things with this situation: 1. The sea is fed by 2 rivers, like an informal Gulf of Mexico. 2. Conflict of water use between the lake itself and the irrigation farmers upstream. Mainly with the Southern sector of the lake. I just wish there was a way that both parties can share the water. That would be awesome to see.
@Big Wheel True. It's a neat thing. Still nothing compared with the aral sea though. I know the aussies also diverted a river system under a mountain, through a hydro damn, and into the desert. As far as i am aware that one is a big plus though. Kinda like the columbia system in north america.
@Big Wheel The river breaking its banks while they were trying to build a damn,is what created it.Putting the river back in its proper channel,is what cut off the water to the Salton Sea.
The hard fact that isn't discussed here is that the Aral sea would eventually have become another 'dead' sea as the salt content of the water ever increased. The diverted waters provided more of an economic advantage in comparison to the subsistence fishing industry.
They irrigate loads of farm land, which brings in money without which Uzbekistan's economy would collapse. It's well known that the irrigation systems could be much more efficient and water diverted back to the Aral sea but there's no money for such a huge project and sadly Uzbekistan would rather drill the sea bed looking for oil and gas.
Building some canals from various rivers would help, I think. Canals from Syrdaria could come from both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. And the Caspian Sea is not so far from Aral Sea. We could connect those places. Voila, we've got two water sources. One problem is money, but I think, getting some of Kazakh and Uzbek money together, and getting foreign investors' money, we could do it.
Longs81 but it’s okay to destroy other people’s lives, jobs to create some that have a negative affect on others, it’s not a win win situation, obviously Russia needs to do their home work and fix this
Gotta love how these people from other countries drive old cars and understand the concept of an asset vs a liability.. watched a video this morn with a man from new zealand than basically took some guys old washer machine and used its motor to create power for his families off grid home.. the machine lasted 16 yrs.. and some fool thought it was garbage.. amazing how resourceful some people can be
That place looks beautiful even without the sea, with it, it probably looked stunning. Oddly the absence of the water probably did it favours in the long term as it avoided the influx of heavy industry and pollutants and will be revived in cleaner times. Sadly, in the remainder of my lifetime I probably wont get to see it restored to it's full glory but who knows, as the world becomes more environmentally sensible maybe they'll speed things up.
Or why they didn't try the obvious solution of reverting the rivers back to their original course. Get used to it, quota hiring will result in lower standards in every industry.
Same thing is being done in the US. Look at Owens Valley & the Colorado River. Numerous cases in South America & Mexico as well. We're destroying our planet by the greed of a few.
The opposite happened in the UK. Lake Vyrnwy in Wales was formed by flooding the area to form a reservoir to feed two large English cities. The village, including the church and graves were submerged and even now, parts of the village appear when the levels are low.
I followed part of the disappearance of this sea. Every time there would be a picture the sea was smaller and smaller. Not only that, but the waters were so incredibly polluted by heavy metals and petrochemicals that it was dangerous just to wade in it. No fish could live there, nor any other animal. Wild animals that drank from it in desperation during the summers all died. It is a miracle and a joyous one to see this sea that was stolen away by the Soviets coming back to where it belongs.
I was searching for aral sea rightnow from past 10 hours and i was disappointed of that videos and i felt sad but now i saw this video im happy for them ..♥️ love from pakistan to our brothers
Has nothing really to do inherently with Communism because if the USA and it's capitalist ways had the chance to kill a lake in Mexico if it made a buck here then you know damn well it would be done.
I wonder if archeologists have taken advantage of the fall in the sea to search the land next to the old ports to find ancient artifacts and old sea wrecks? There should be stuff like that now exposed on the dry sea floor to find..
This reminds me of the Salton Sea in California. Although it was formed by accident in the early 20th century, it has become a wildlife sanctuary and tourist destination. But it is drying up, the resorts have closed. If allowed to dry up it will blow toxic minerals into farm land to the north and south. California needs to agree on a way to save it.
I went there several times when I lived in Southern California. A lot of people say it has a weird, surreal, post-apocalyptic look to it. There were definitely people still living near it, but all the big resorts have closed. The Salton Sea is turning into kind of a miniature form of the southern Aral Sea. For decades, the sea level was maintained by farmers in the Imperial Valley being allowed to dump their irrigation runoff into the sea, but that runoff was also full of fertilizer and pesticides, which poisoned the water and made it increasingly more saline to the point where fish kept dying off in masses. The toxins from the agricultural runoff are now what are being exposed since farmers are no longer allowed to dump runoff into the sea, and causing a lot of health problems in the surrounding communities. The last time I went there was in 2015 and I could see that the shoreline was receding already from when I had been there just a few years ago. California has just ignored the Salton Sea problem for decades, despite being warned of what would happen if nothing was done, and now the people who can't afford to leave the area are paying the price.
Point is.. Trees really could be a key to relive the sea. In winter trees collecting more snow around, which could give more flood water. Known rivers SyrDarya and AmuDarya not only one water sources, there's few more mountains could collect snow for floodwater, and nearly five rivers could be a water source, that have been water sources for aralsea in medieval. They need to grow trees, even forests around that regional rivers and mountains and of course build few canals to use wisely every years Spring flood water
ok. just to save some time for people who have nothing better to do in their lives than whine about a single word slip of the tongue in an otherwise interesting video: the surface area was 68,000 square km. the word "mile" is a misstatement, and i will guess because the rather british sounding person who said it was in the habit of talking square miles. So, can we please get over that now?? thanks
Yes: Han Solo said that his Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in "less than 12 parsecs". That's like me boasting: "I drove from Paris to Berlin in less than 600 miles." (≈1000 kilometers). A parsec is not a measure of speed, it is a measure of distance, and yet people are still watching Star Wars 41 years later.
@@markmiller6844 You just don't even know. The Millennium Falcon moves so fast on that run it actually travels less distance because of time dilation due to the extreme hyperdrive gravity man.
It feels as if they mention the dam as something that keeps the water from leaving the Aral Sea, but it actually keeps the water from flowing into the southern half of the sea. As a matter of fact, the southern half dries up on a more rapid pace. The dam is amazing for the northern part of the sea. I believe what they're doing if of great advantage to the long-term redevelopment of the old environment, but it has some (short-term) affects on large parts of the sea towards the south.
Wow I wasn't aware they tried to restore it back to what it used to be. I had often ignored the repeating parts of history class and looked through my book I saw pictures and graphics about the lake but this is realy something I hope to see suceed.
Currently the world is like Aral sea as once upon a time there were tourist destinations, offices, shopping malls were, theatres were filled with people now completely empty due to Corona!
Yep and tgere are positives! In the North Indian cities I used to visit the visibility sometimes was a few metres, now the foothills of the Himalayas can be seen from the same hotel window!
They told you they put up a little tiny 10-meter High Dam that keeps the water from going to the south end of the lake making the North End Lake grow a little bit. You know there's a thing called Google Earth if you pull it up you can see the Aral Sea and you can see the damn.
'...only the city's former soviet architecture, hints at its former prosperity' The Soviet Union was regressive in every way. It was not prosperous and there was no prosperity.
Prosperity in this context is a relative term... They where relatively prosperous back in former times then they are today.. So they where once poor.. Now they are just dirt poor..
@@Ktaurus26 The reason they're worst off has to do with even more corrupt governments taking over. The problem is the Soviet Union as a state was not sustainable. After the initial bouts of industrialization, that I might add devastated most traditional industries, the Soviet Union saw steady decline and became increasingly dependent on a handful of industries particularly oil. You'll notice the USSR grew the fastest under Lenin and it's growth slowed under Stalin, slowed more under Kruschev, stagnated under Breschnev and decline under Gorbachev till it collapsed in 1991.
Anyone else get annoyed when channels subtitle perfectly comprehensible English with what the editors consider would have been better words (like the surgeon about 11mins in)?
I remember seeing it on the map when I was young in the 1950s, I sincerely hope it continues to return to its former size, such a devastating shame it was destroyed.
Every one knows that the Aral sea was not lost to global warming but to human mismanagement ...
Fact.
Yikes, this is going to trigger the lefties. Global warming (or climate change or what ever it goes by now), carbon footprint, and anti-capitalism is their religion.
@External power Russia? It's Soviet. Soviet capitalism (I lol).
@Jim Battersbee It didn't. I just responded to the original comment here. Read it, then read mine.
Ah the "straw man argument". As the program and others have said human mismanagement was the cause. Fact. This doesn't prove or disprove the existence of climate change.
Great to see the lake and life coming back.
I could literally understand the guy without the subtitles and they were totally different
@Laurie Huntley crickets chirping.
Care to elaborate?
He's talking about the guy at around 11 minutes. He was speaking (mostly) English, and the translation, whilst more-or-less true to the spirit of what he was saying, was not the same as what he was saying.
@@derpyeh9107 Guy said 'brilliant' and it was needlessly translated to 'magnificent'.
I think the subtitles were probably originally in French and then translated back to English.
I wish these people all the best. I believe that they should demand a return of a minimum flow from their original rivers. The world would support them in that effort.
That's the issue
The same thing will happen in Laos Thailand Cambodia even now the Chinese control the water flow and there is significant changes to the water flow
@@markmitchell450 One thing at a time. Pick your battles. The demand concerning the Arak sea is definitive, clearly understood issues and history. Please, no surfing!
In Kazakhstan, sure. But I don't know about the situation in Uzbekistan.
"their original rivers." I wonder what that means? The two rivers responsible for filling the Aral sea do no originate in Uzbekistan. The headwaters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers originate elsewhere. Just as The United States controls the headwaters of the Colorado River and has built the Hoover Dam (and others) which have had a negative impact on the flow of water into Mexico. China will never give up Tibet for very sound strategic reasons, one of which is water. The Tibetan Himalayas hold the headwaters of China's Yellow and Yangtse rivers, the Brahmaputra (flows into Bangladesh), the Ganges and Indus (India), and the Mekong (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand). Whoever controls Tibet will have China by the scrotum. That won't be happening any time ever. The ongoing water dispute between Egypt (which historically has claimed most of the Nile) and Ethiopia (controls one of the Nile headwaters and is constructing a hydro dam) is another example of countries in control of the headwaters having impact on downstream countries. This century and the next will most likely see water wars on a global scale unless countries are willing to share the economic benefits and the economic hardships.
Environmental news is usually bleak, it was nice to hear some positive news for a change. Thank you
Unfortunately they leave out the fact that this is only about 1/4 of the original sea and that most of it has been abandoned to its fate. :/
all nature needs is for man to go away.......it will heal itself.
50 years of humans messing it up is gonna take a couple of decades to fix.
+Matt H
they said around 50%
China planted a 15km wide wall of trees to stop the Gobi desert from expanding and it's working. There is a similar initiative in Africa to stop the southern part of Sahara from expanding, but it is less of a success, because it's Africa.
It’s a small fraction of the original lake! Better than nothing you might say in the same way that 1/5 is greater than zero but it’s still less than 1 (complete restoration).
Am in tears..... For in west Africa a sea /a lake I have never seen is fast disappearing. That I know and so will economic life Sad Sad. .....Lake Chad
In Ghana we are not better off our waters are shrinking.
Worse they are being polluted by the illegal gold mines.
So heart breaking
it's next to a literal desert.....
I an so sad for you, I do not know what to say to you Governments do not care about people they just exploit, them.
Best Wishes I hope as this post is a year old that life is getting better not worse.
What's sadder is that the gold is probably being mined by Chinese people and other foreigners
@@africanlastborn7776 how has france hijacked their money and who is france according to you?
Humans have been low and short-sighted all around the world.
Go Aral Sea go! I hop you make it back to normal!
. This is encouraging. I'm glad to see the sea starting to heal.
I remember as a kid seeing pictures of rusting boats on dry land where the Aral Sea used to be and thinking there was something really creepy about them.
I remember those rusting boats you saw, as functioning fishing boats, floating on meters deep water.
68 thousand kilometre square miles? thats a lot of kilometre square miles
ahahahaha
He meant cubic kilometer square miles.
How much does that cost in fahrenheit?
About A - 78 Inches, or € Lumen if you are from Lybia
size of my country, actually lake is bigger,, sri lanka
11:22 The man said "I think it's greed of people", not "greed of our people". And he is right, greed is universal among us, people.
also right after instead of saying "especially the government" he said "it was brilliant, our sea"
Whoever did those subs is an idiot. The guy's English isn't bad, especially considering he lives in the heart of central Asia. You can understand every word he says.
Right on! Best of luck and future prosperity for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, especially the people in the Aral region!
What happened to Aral Sea is like a micro example of what we re doing now on our planet. Until we realized it’s too late.
not really, the oceans water level is increasing every year due to artic and antarctic ice melting
@@joaobastos6435 - This is ruining fresh underground water as sea water intrudes. This is happening in Pacific Island nations and the Nile delta region of Egypt and no doubt elsewhere. The rising sea levels are directly affecting more and more nations, Bangladesh being one. Tens if not hundreds of millions currently live along coastal zones that will eventually be flooded as sea level rises. But that will be a problem future generations will have to face and somehow solve, I do not envy them.
@@joaobastos6435 but ocean levels are rising because of climate change. Otherwise , they would not be rising.
The guy said : here is a little one...
Translator : is a magnificent fish.. Wtf?
And??? what's the big deal there? it was a nice fish after all...
@@georgensal It's supposed to be a friggin documentary, not a work of fiction. I expect them to provide an accurate translation for everything. As soon as you start 'correcting' some parts, the integrity of the whole work becomes threatened.
@@Kenionatus I totally agree! It seems this type of "documentaries" have a different purpose in mind! Sad!
guy: this us my wife sazan,sazan
translator;that's a beautiful carp
guy: this is my wife sazan,sazan!
translator: that's a beautiful carp
It's important that the elders remember an environment suitable for wild life. Perhaps the young will catch a vision and learn from the mistakes of previous generations.
That won't happen until they OVERTHROW the TYRANT running Kazakhstan for 27 yrs! That is why WE in the USA have to VOTE OUT OF OFFICE our own TYRANT --Fuhrer Drumpf!
One of those mistakes might be “feeding the young”.
So they can catch and eat it. Bet the wildlife can't wait.
@@williedaniels3882 well, now we have a bunch of new wars and the border is being flooded with covid victims. Great job.
it wasn't a mistake of local people. it was politics of Sovyet Union which no one in Kazakhstan could go against.
I am a hydrogeologist. I have been visiting the Aral Lake several years ago. The only and major reason for the dissemination of the lake was the extensive abstraction of irrigation water upstream. This has lead to extensive saltification of soils and groundwater in Usbekistan which in turn reduces meanwhile the cultivation of cotton. To my understanding, the separation of both parts of the former lake does not make sense. The only chance for lonfgtern recovery might be the enhanced inflow of both, Sirdarja and Amourdarja river.
Absolutly! Stop grow Cotton, reduce taking water to a minimum level, grow trees up beside the whole rivers and start again..
It is great progress is being made. I hope it continues, and stays.
7:06 Poor kid. Sisters get to go to school and do something with themselves and he's gotta stay and fish. Props to him for putting his own interests to the side and helping his parents 👏
Well done France (and I'm speaking as a Brit...) Excellent film and full of interest and information.Thank you once more for a really entertaining look at an almost 'lost' part of our world.
How can we trust that your subtitled translations are accurate when your English subtitles for the surgeon speaking ENGLISH are clearly not what he is saying? When subtitling, you don't get creative license. Print what is said. Make any comment you want from your own so-called "reporter" just don't show a local talking with bogus subtitles. POOR JOURNALISM IS A PANDEMIC.
That’s not always how language works.
@@petermgruhn Trout has a bad horse for the day. Thanks - Lumpy
They are dumbing it down for the indifferent audience who don't understand the simple comma or the mighty apostrophe
@@Longtack55 Or even the incoming catastrophe.
I noticed that, too. I thought that's not what he said!
I am so happy to see this once & now again seaside community is being restored to prosperity.
do you people know that the rivers they diverted were never diverted back? how do they expect the sea to fill back up without them?
Supertomiman this is the smartest comment I've heard yet. All these people that want to save the world think they live in a vacuum
Ice age
They built a dam that makes sure the water doesn't cover the surface area as it did before. And since evaporation is linear to surface area, the amount of evaporation is kept low and thus the lake grows until it reaches a new equilibrium.
It's not rocket science, they litterally said 'we've only managed to save the northern part of the sea', so it's not the enitire sea that's returned, only a small portion of it. I just hope that portion is big enough to save the local area from dust bowls and salination.
The sea will fill up because rivers are just one way of moving water around. Underneath the ground there will be water moving though the earth. The sea will fill up only as high as the water table, but that is better than nothing.
This is the obvious solution but it requires some local champions with a vision and a goal. Obviously they need to restore the flow of those two rivers. Since another republic is involved, they also need smart diplomacy. These are nice people but they lived under communism for so long and the bureaucratic way of life still lingers.
Excuse me? Come again?..
68,000 kilometer.. square miles? I’m sorry, those are 2 different measurements. Does not compute
Didnt notice at first lololol
That translates to one heck of a lot of water.
The titel is misleading, the recovery happens only in the northern part of the sea and due to the dam they definitely killed the southern part.
RS_Trickser for now the northern part only is better than the entire sea being gone. Will take a lot of money and a not corrupt government to actually reroute the rivers to fully fix the sea.
@@ryannoble8536 Haha done it once will do it again
Correct!
Did you even watch to 1:42?
The video should have mentioned that the dam was built at a choke point within the sea. It mystified me continually where it was while I watched.
It took less than twenty years to happen. Ports were already being abandoned in the 1980s and they didn't learn.
20 Million fish used to live here, now its a ghost bed.
who counted?
ghost fish👻👻🐟🐟👻👻
Plus a crab for company.
Just started watching this and something caught my attention that has nothing to do with the subject of the video. Just after the two minute mark.
The condition of the highway. Its in great shape. Much better than what I have seen of US highways in other vids.
Wear and tear on roads are a factor you know. Those roads probably don't get as much heavy traffic on them or semi hauling like the U.S. roads you maybe comparing against. Those same decent roads could also be a minority in the country in a larger sample size. I would remain skeptical and not make quick judgement on this observation.
@@jungoogie You understand that you are contradicting yourself. If the roads have less economic value the government has less incentive to keep it in shape as it looks.
yes I noticed that too- I was rather impressed as I see even new roads start to go fairly quickly
the trailer we saw being pulled had more than the typical 2 or 3 axles- spreading the load can help reduce the damage
The majority of the US has really nice highways. Some areas that get a lot of freeze thaw cycle's do deteriorate very quickly. Especially with the amount of salt we spread on our roads in the winter.
The destruction of this lake saddens me so much, i am just trying to imagine its beauty 60 years ago, it must have as in the fairy tales
It’s coming back.
I remember the Soviets, starting the diversions, and the consequent reduction of the Aral Sea.
Trying to refill the sea, will take a long time, though congratulations, I guess are in order, for attempting to fix, what wasn't broken, to start with.
¨only the cities soviet architecture hints at its former prosperity¨ Well that's a sentence i never thought i would hear.
Yeah, soviet and prosperity can't belong together
I really suggest you to take a look to "Bald and Bankrupt" channel, he travels all across the ex-USSR countries and shows what is lasting of the USSR period (both the positive and the negative things), it's really enlighting to learn something about all those "unknown" countries
@@MrLuca998 I prefer Harald Baldr's channel
@@GlossaME Well, it's another great channel ! Sorry but everytime i think about soviet things Bald and Bankrupt automatically comes up to my mind 😂
@@MrLuca998 You are right on that one. He is a fluent russian language speaker afterall
It's nice to see that at least in this instance humans are correcting an environmental disaster humans created.
Christian O. Ho
2018.1.06 1741h EST
Too bad they didn't just bring in some Beavers to fix it.
+AJ Schultz (aAmosche The IV)
and leave it to beavers...
maybe they could've...
Christian O. Holz let’s try harder
This is not our fault, but Uzbekistan, there actively grow cotton and rice, Kazakhstan did everything to save this sea ,Uzbekistan does not want to join this large-scale project, Because it requires a lot of money and they do not have the money.Kazakhstan together with the World Bank makes this project
"My four daughters can go to university and get married in the city. But my son has to stay here to fish."
Either the best or the worst example of emancipation.
The more things change the more they stay the same
Actually, this is a Kazakh national tradition. If a family has the only son and the rest of the children are daughters, the only or the youngest son creates his own family living with his parents to back them when they get old. Daughters and elder sons normally leave root family. Our older people never stay alone living the rest of their lives.
its the first step in the emancipation. The women are now allowed to get education but the tradition of men taking their fathers jobs still is there. The next step would be euqality in this field
@Erik Bongers, really?! You feel threatened in your male supremacy?
@@kristine6996 do you feel threatened in your bubble where discrimination against men is good and discrimination against women is bad?
What handsome and beautiful people. May they enjoy a bright future.
@ZionHillCalling yes like New Mexico and Australia
I'm very impressed by Dussenbayev's command of the English language. Well done, sir. Some day I'll try to visit your country.
Thanks a lot, sir! Welcome to the Aral sea, Kazakhstan. I am sorry for my english, if I made some mistakes. Happy to see comment about me)
I wish good Fortune to the people of Kazakhstan, try to bring back the northern Aral Sea. I hope some day the Uzbeki people do the same.
I hope the Aral Sea recovers fully !
Can't the rivers just be diverted back to where they are supposed to flow?
They built the damn so they could continue to use the rivers water to farmland. Just putting the river back into place would leave alot of farmland unavailable and hunger would greet them i guess
That would be an easy enough situation if the Soviet Union still existed, and if the political will was there. Unfortunately, the reason the Soviets decided to divert the water in the first place was to irrigate desert land to grow cotton. Now several different countries are involved. Kazakhstan is committed to saving their part of the sea, but their decision to build a dam and cut the North Aral Sea off from the Southeast and Southwest basins was after Uzbekistan showed a complete unwillingness to redirect any of its water back into the sea. Uzbekistan has become dependent on the cotton that they grow with the diverted water, and has no political will to save the Aral Sea. In fact, they have decided to plant thousands of small bushes that can live in salty soil on the former sea bed, hoping that these plants will attract rain and stop dust storms. And in some cases, the decision cannot be made by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan alone, because the rivers involved have their source in yet third or fourth countries, so diversion back to the sea could impact at least four different nations. It ought to be easy enough, in theory, but asking countries to give up jobs and revenue to save a lake is a hard sell, particularly if the countries are as poor as most former Soviet republics.
@@jdoggtn7 Well I suppose things are at least heading in the right direction, hopefully. Thanks for the reply.
LET HOPE THAT THE SEA WILL COME BACK! WATER IS LIVE! 🌊🌊🌊🌊
Go's With the Wind think you mean LIFE
I watched a previous video about the Aral Sea, there was apparently a very profitable fishing industry for sturgeon caviar which was exported to the US.
Cotton seems to be a crop that should only be grown where there is ample water to irrigate it without negatively impacting everything around it.
I remember the original Aral Sea, before the Soviets redirected the flows, of 2 rivers.
Last I had heard was that the Aral Sea, had dried up entirely, leaving the toxic Salts, as mentioned.
It is Good, to see an attempt being made to return the Aral Sea, to its former glory - that will take longer to achieve, than it took to dehydrate the Sea & turn it to desert.
Trust, that the refilling of the Sea, continues, and reaches its former levels & abundance.
The USSR put their biological weapons testing facility on an island in the Aral Sea. Vozrozhdeniye Island is often called Anthrax island. BTW- it's not an island anymore.
I'm amazed at how this story almost exactly mirrors the Salton Sea in California: A lake dying and drying up due to diverting water for irrigation; people suffering health issues, fish die offs, etc. Even had a military base and all. Except they tested nukes and other things at the Naval Station there, not biochemical warfare. Only real difference is that the Salton Sea was a dried up prehistoric lake bed before an accident formed it again in the early 1900's.
@@joemomma506 the Salton Sea was an accident though.
@@joemomma506 The Salton Sea was formed when a aqueduct from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valleys busted in the 1930s. It started to dry up again after they fixed the breach. Ironically it was the recent diverting of water away from agriculture to the cities that increased the rate. Less agricultural runoff = faster decline.
@@SirManfly Yeah, that's what I wrote. Are you blind?
@@RickZackExploreOffroad Yeah, I know the history.
guy: this is my wife sazan,sazan!
translator: that's a beautiful carp
So little by little it’s coming back 😊
The guy interviewed between 10:12 -11:35 speaks simple English but gets English subtitles that has words he doesn't say added to it.
This might just be me projecting, but I see 2 things with this situation:
1. The sea is fed by 2 rivers, like an informal Gulf of Mexico.
2. Conflict of water use between the lake itself and the irrigation farmers upstream. Mainly with the Southern sector of the lake.
I just wish there was a way that both parties can share the water. That would be awesome to see.
the water wasnt lost it was used somewhere else. Still shocking though.
If it was used somewhere else because of a water shortage then it's the same thing!
@@krimmer66 No lmao, you yourself said it was USED which means it wasn't lost.
Communism destroying something who'd have thought.
How many things have been destroyed by capitalism?
Six Dry Lakes in California You Should Visit. Grubby little man.
Central planning water mismanagement, disregarding the larger consequence. Almost reminds ya of, ida know, California's Central Valley? Nah. . . .
The Government did the same to the MURRAY RIVER system here, and the river and surrounding townships are dying... Vandalism on a mega scale.
Oroville Dam? How much longer will it hold?
LOL. exactly.
@Big Wheel True. It's a neat thing. Still nothing compared with the aral sea though. I know the aussies also diverted a river system under a mountain, through a hydro damn, and into the desert. As far as i am aware that one is a big plus though. Kinda like the columbia system in north america.
@Big Wheel The river breaking its banks while they were trying to build a damn,is what created it.Putting the river back in its proper channel,is what cut off the water to the Salton Sea.
68,000 kilometre-square mile lake
Those are some crazy units of measurement that they use in Kazakhstan
The hard fact that isn't discussed here is that the Aral sea would eventually have become another 'dead' sea as the salt content of the water ever increased. The diverted waters provided more of an economic advantage in comparison to the subsistence fishing industry.
Thank you for this story with a happy ending.
Why not return the rivers that use to feed the sea .
Dena Redford because they have been damed for electricity
They irrigate loads of farm land, which brings in money without which Uzbekistan's economy would collapse. It's well known that the irrigation systems could be much more efficient and water diverted back to the Aral sea but there's no money for such a huge project and sadly Uzbekistan would rather drill the sea bed looking for oil and gas.
Building some canals from various rivers would help, I think.
Canals from Syrdaria could come from both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
And the Caspian Sea is not so far from Aral Sea. We could connect those places. Voila, we've got two water sources.
One problem is money, but I think, getting some of Kazakh and Uzbek money together, and getting foreign investors' money, we could do it.
@@cinnamon4 Or just revert the rivers that originally fed the sea.
Longs81 but it’s okay to destroy other people’s lives, jobs to create some that have a negative affect on others, it’s not a win win situation, obviously Russia needs to do their home work and fix this
"That hill use to be the coast line." OMG that's freaky.
Gotta love how these people from other countries drive old cars and understand the concept of an asset vs a liability.. watched a video this morn with a man from new zealand than basically took some guys old washer machine and used its motor to create power for his families off grid home.. the machine lasted 16 yrs.. and some fool thought it was garbage.. amazing how resourceful some people can be
That place looks beautiful even without the sea, with it, it probably looked stunning. Oddly the absence of the water probably did it favours in the long term as it avoided the influx of heavy industry and pollutants and will be revived in cleaner times. Sadly, in the remainder of my lifetime I probably wont get to see it restored to it's full glory but who knows, as the world becomes more environmentally sensible maybe they'll speed things up.
Be nice to have it restocked with fish again as well as terraforming with plants in the new area 🤔
I wish I'd found out where the dam was made or where the rivers were diverted, but nevermid, that's irrelevant...
Yea & Nay..we base our entire existence on past events.
During the 60s
Or why they didn't try the obvious solution of reverting the rivers back to their original course.
Get used to it, quota hiring will result in lower standards in every industry.
@@wordimobi5765 when they do that all the farms and local ecosystems built around the new courses will fail
Mr.Andrew - Yeah,what's up with that?Wondered same thing
"inland lake " is there any other type ?
There are also less-inland lakes.
space lakes. Don't forget space lakes.
There are also underwater lakes
Puff
I think they mean endorheic basin. The water isn’t supposed to drain to the ocean, it is supposed to drain to the Sea.
Absolutely astoundingly wonderful to see !!
I love you. Something good happened, THANK GOD first, & thanks to people that care. God bless you and peace be with you.
Shalom
Хорошо видеть что в Казахстан потихоньку возвращается жизнь.
Thank you Soviets. That was truly a genius decision on your part.
Same thing is being done in the US. Look at Owens Valley & the Colorado River. Numerous cases in South America & Mexico as well. We're destroying our planet by the greed of a few.
Canada too.
They had to feed millions of people and that was the best way to do it.
The sacrifice of the few for the benefit of the many.
The opposite happened in the UK. Lake Vyrnwy in Wales was formed by flooding the area to form a reservoir to feed two large English cities. The village, including the church and graves were submerged and even now, parts of the village appear when the levels are low.
@@tazzatamania there must have been more lakes in England in the past considering all the rain and canals. Drained for agriculture i suppose.
I followed part of the disappearance of this sea. Every time there would be a picture the sea was smaller and smaller. Not only that, but the waters were so incredibly polluted by heavy metals and petrochemicals that it was dangerous just to wade in it. No fish could live there, nor any other animal. Wild animals that drank from it in desperation during the summers all died. It is a miracle and a joyous one to see this sea that was stolen away by the Soviets coming back to where it belongs.
Nyet nyet soviet.. Da da Canada...Hahaha
I was searching for aral sea rightnow from past 10 hours and i was disappointed of that videos and i felt sad but now i saw this video im happy for them ..♥️ love from pakistan to our brothers
Great to see it coming back.
An update today would be fantastic ☺️
Communism not only a social disaster but an environmental disaster as well.
do you live in america?
do you know what america did/does to its enviroment?
Has nothing really to do inherently with Communism because if the USA and it's capitalist ways had the chance to kill a lake in Mexico if it made a buck here then you know damn well it would be done.
Of course. Communists are blameless and sinless. Capitalists are all devils; right?
Much less damage, kolo. Heck, species are making a comeback all over the place.
Barskor1 you mean Russians.
Let us all remember to thank the Soviet Union for this mess
and Chernobyl lol.
Now your on thin ice
Theres a lot more in the western hemisphere. And the big different, the USSR just makes it, in their territory.
I like a video like this that gives hope. Hope that valuable things practically lost can make a come back.
wow a 68 thousand km mile lake???
I wonder if archeologists have taken advantage of the fall in the sea to search the land next to the old ports to find ancient artifacts and old sea wrecks? There should be stuff like that now exposed on the dry sea floor to find..
Who cares. For most of human history the Aral Sea was exactly that.
Mmm yes imagine the archaeological treasures!!
When you and your family on the brink of starvation, lol who would care about some old jar of clay that pirates threw overboard ages ago.
Yes, they did, search for "Aral-asar", you will find lots of papers published with photos
Its was what i was thinking too.
Hoping the water will comeback..Greetings from Phillipines.
This reminds me of the Salton Sea in California. Although it was formed by accident in the early 20th century, it has become a wildlife sanctuary and tourist destination. But it is drying up, the resorts have closed. If allowed to dry up it will blow toxic minerals into farm land to the north and south. California needs to agree on a way to save it.
I went there several times when I lived in Southern California. A lot of people say it has a weird, surreal, post-apocalyptic look to it. There were definitely people still living near it, but all the big resorts have closed.
The Salton Sea is turning into kind of a miniature form of the southern Aral Sea. For decades, the sea level was maintained by farmers in the Imperial Valley being allowed to dump their irrigation runoff into the sea, but that runoff was also full of fertilizer and pesticides, which poisoned the water and made it increasingly more saline to the point where fish kept dying off in masses. The toxins from the agricultural runoff are now what are being exposed since farmers are no longer allowed to dump runoff into the sea, and causing a lot of health problems in the surrounding communities. The last time I went there was in 2015 and I could see that the shoreline was receding already from when I had been there just a few years ago. California has just ignored the Salton Sea problem for decades, despite being warned of what would happen if nothing was done, and now the people who can't afford to leave the area are paying the price.
Very encouraging to see this. Hopefully, economics and heritage will find a balance, and bring some revival to this part of the world.
This beautiful world that we are so blessed to be the children of will not miss us when we are gone.
PLANT MORE TREES PEOPLE!!! Water Cycle Look it up No Trees no clouds no rain
Point is.. Trees really could be a key to relive the sea. In winter trees collecting more snow around, which could give more flood water. Known rivers SyrDarya and AmuDarya not only one water sources, there's few more mountains could collect snow for floodwater, and nearly five rivers could be a water source, that have been water sources for aralsea in medieval. They need to grow trees, even forests around that regional rivers and mountains and of course build few canals to use wisely every years Spring flood water
Grasslands for grazing would be more effective
Justin Schubert This Sadly would work semi-optical since most of the land surrounding it became desert with toxic dust storms
Very hard to plant and grow trees in that baren land. Very hard to have well suited species for that either.
That's not why it dried up.
10:14, If you're going to subtitle because his accent is hard to understand, can you at least not make up your own words?
ok. just to save some time for people who have nothing better to do in their lives than whine about a single word slip of the tongue in an otherwise interesting video: the surface area was 68,000 square km. the word "mile" is a misstatement, and i will guess because the rather british sounding person who said it was in the habit of talking square miles.
So, can we please get over that now?? thanks
Yes: Han Solo said that his Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in "less than 12 parsecs". That's like me boasting: "I drove from Paris to Berlin in less than 600 miles." (≈1000 kilometers). A parsec is not a measure of speed, it is a measure of distance, and yet people are still watching Star Wars 41 years later.
@@markmiller6844 You just don't even know. The Millennium Falcon moves so fast on that run it actually travels less distance because of time dilation due to the extreme hyperdrive gravity man.
I'm triggered.
Yeah including Chernobîl nuclear desastre
@@handlead that's awesome dude. Too funny
I'm watching this in 2021 and little has changed.
It feels as if they mention the dam as something that keeps the water from leaving the Aral Sea, but it actually keeps the water from flowing into the southern half of the sea. As a matter of fact, the southern half dries up on a more rapid pace. The dam is amazing for the northern part of the sea. I believe what they're doing if of great advantage to the long-term redevelopment of the old environment, but it has some (short-term) affects on large parts of the sea towards the south.
Wow I wasn't aware they tried to restore it back to what it used to be. I had often ignored the repeating parts of history class and looked through my book I saw pictures and graphics about the lake but this is realy something I hope to see suceed.
Currently the world is like Aral sea as once upon a time there were tourist destinations, offices, shopping malls were, theatres were filled with people now completely empty due to Corona!
Yep and tgere are positives! In the North Indian cities I used to visit the visibility sometimes was a few metres, now the foothills of the Himalayas can be seen from the same hotel window!
And, perhaps, the small amount of the natural world remaining can be safe for a bit longer.
No no, they aren't empty because of corrona. They are empty because governments ordered everything to be empty. There's a difference.
Nothing is properly explained what kind of actions that has been done...
They told you they put up a little tiny 10-meter High Dam that keeps the water from going to the south end of the lake making the North End Lake grow a little bit. You know there's a thing called Google Earth if you pull it up you can see the Aral Sea and you can see the damn.
I like how at one point, the guy is speaking English and they gave him English subtitles that weren't quite what he was actually saying.
500 kilometers to swim in a dirty hole.
And I complain when I can't find anything to watch on my 300 channels
The best comment here...by far.
Swimming in that dirty hole is probably more fun than watching your300 channels.
You have a legitimate beef.
They don't go there because they don't have water, this "dirty hole" has mineral-rich water that has healing properties.
Its a literal hot spring in the middle of an arid winter desert
'...only the city's former soviet architecture, hints at its former prosperity' The Soviet Union was regressive in every way. It was not prosperous and there was no prosperity.
Prosperity in this context is a relative term... They where relatively prosperous back in former times then they are today.. So they where once poor.. Now they are just dirt poor..
Matlockization Central Asia is not modern at all until the soviets built it up. Former republics are worse off now than under soviet rule.
Matlockization was about to comment on the same thing. People got some misplaced intrigue in Marxism.
@@Ktaurus26 The reason they're worst off has to do with even more corrupt governments taking over. The problem is the Soviet Union as a state was not sustainable. After the initial bouts of industrialization, that I might add devastated most traditional industries, the Soviet Union saw steady decline and became increasingly dependent on a handful of industries particularly oil. You'll notice the USSR grew the fastest under Lenin and it's growth slowed under Stalin, slowed more under Kruschev, stagnated under Breschnev and decline under Gorbachev till it collapsed in 1991.
My daughters can go study at university but my son has to stay and fish... man all that patriarchy in the world...
“The Glorious Nations of Kazakhstan
Def glad its on its way back🎉
Why am I watching an English documentary from a channel called France24 about the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan??!?!?!????
P8qzxnxfP85xZ2H3wDRV because the USA and anglo-saxon world is in decline and Russia, France and China are looking to get their place.
@@matthewhemmings2464 I think he meant why is a french tv station playing english language films
11:08 He didn't say most of the words that are in thw captions
What the hell France 24?
Anyone else get annoyed when channels subtitle perfectly comprehensible English with what the editors consider would have been better words (like the surgeon about 11mins in)?
Excellent report
Thank you Lord for Blessing & creating a Miracle for your people.
Praise the Lord for the water.
Uh, No! It's Stupidity that caused that water to dry up.
Great news!! Maybe life can return to normal.
"A 68sqkm sqmile lake."
Make your mind up!
Be Good Aral Sea. I always Liked You.
Um, the problem was not that the sea dried up, but that the leftover dust on the seafloor was in fact toxic or radioactive...
A second dam will be needed for the southern part of the sea, it have to be on the river or creeks that feed that part of the sea.
Aral 2020 ❤🚢⚓🌍
Make Aral great again.