The Perestroika and Environmental Issues: The Politics of the ‘Aral Sea Problems’

Abstract

The paper deals with the politics of the ‘Aral Sea problems’ during the perestroika time and its legacy after the independence of five Central Asian states. The research questions are as follows: What kind of actors did what sort of discussions in relation to the environmental, social and economic aspects of the Aral Sea problems during the perestroika? How did the authorities of the newly independent states inherit these discussions in taking measures against the problems? The paper especially focuses on the rencontres in the Committee of the USSR Supreme Soviet for the Ecology and the Rational Usage of Natural Resources (1989–1991).

The Aral Sea is the inland lake located in the desert area across Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the territory of the former Soviet Union. It was the fourth largest lake all over the world, which started shrinking in 1960 due to the extensive development of irrigated plots and the irrational usage of water resources in the basin. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident in 1986 disclosed public voices over environmental protection matters and, with the bottom-up initiative of locals, the life-threatening issues around the Aral Sea began to be unmasked for wholesale discussion in the Soviet Union.

Four types of actors engaged in the discussion and policymaking upon the Aral Sea problems. The first is the ‘framers’ in Moscow, who led the policy formation in spite of their divergence in opinions, accordantly claiming that people firstly should economize waters for irrigation. The second is the nature protection oriented writers and scientists, who condemned the hydraulic engineers and the gigantic hydraulic constructions, initially gaining support from the ‘framers,’ but breaking with them afterwards. The third is the hydraulic engineers themselves, who seemed to have experienced the downfall of their credibility, but came back to the front of policy making in the final days of the Soviet Union. The fourth is the local authorities, who intended to acquire as many subsidies as possible from Moscow to ensure the further development of the region as well as to resolve the Aral Sea problems, supporting the engineers but being antagonistic to the conservationists.

These four actors argued heatedly, but accomplished almost nothing. Notwithstanding, the authorities of the newly independent states inherited these arguments during the perestroika as the framework to tackle the Aral Sea problems. They have continuously paid attention to the socio-economic and sanitary-epidemiological conditions of localities, the improvement of the water efficiency in irrigation, and the partial restoration of the lake itself. However, the Aral Sea continued to scale down. The confrontation between the upstream and the downstream countries is severe, although the basin coordination institutions were established.