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Climate change swallowing the once-mighty Aral Sea

Once one of the world’s largest inland bodies of water, Central Asia lake now 1/4 its previous size
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A man repairs an old boat along the dried-up Aral Sea, in the village of Tastubek near the Aralsk city, Kazakhstan, Monday, July 2, 2023. The demise of the once-mighty sea has affected thousands of residents and their livelihoods for decades. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Toxic dust storms, anti-government protests, the fall of the Soviet Union — for generations, none of it has deterred Nafisa Bayniyazova and her family from making a living growing melons, pumpkins and tomatoes on farms around the Aral Sea.

Bayniyazova, 50, has spent most of her life near Muynak, in northwestern Uzbekistan, tending the land. Farm life was sometimes difficult but generally reliable and productive.

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