Paul Lauener’s stirring report from the Aral Sea, scene of both environmental miracle and disaster.
Just a decade ago, it looked like the Soviet Union’s disastrous decision to divert the Aral Sea’s feeder rivers to farming had turned an area the size of Ireland into a ship graveyard, with no fish and no jobs.
But now, five years after the construction of a dam, fresh river water is again filling the northern part, known as the Small Aral Sea, and even the elusive local fish are returning in force.
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