OUR GOALS
1. Create opportunities to support increasing engagement in environmentalism for youth in Uzbekistan
2. Promote research into ecology and environmental history between the UK and Uzbekistan
Since 2023, five Oxford University students and thirty-six students from Karakalpakstan and Khorezm have collaborated to create an oral history film about the Amu Darya Delta in Uzbekistan.
WHY AMU DARYA?
From the 1960s onwards, Soviet overextraction of water from the Amu Darya River for cotton irrigation has been a major cause of the depletion of the Aral Sea. In the Khorezm region alone, 16,000 km of canals were built along the Amu Darya River.
As the Amu Darya was depleted, the downstream Aral Sea began to shrink. Today, this lake is one tenth of its original size.
1960
2016
AMU DARYA
RIVER
ARAL SEA
By making an oral history film, we hope to present a human dimension to the ecological changes of this region.
We are using our findings to encourage a public, student, and institutional discussion on environmentalism in the Aral Sea Region.
