Tastubek is a small fishing village located on the coast of the Aral Sea. When the waters of the sea receded due to Soviet-era irrigation projects, life here effectively stopped. After the completion ...

The Aral Sea’s story demonstrates how human actions can profoundly alter natural systems, yet it also shows that determined cooperation can begin to repair environmental damage that once seemed ...

Where water once stood is now an arid, dry, open landscape in western Kazakhstan punctuated with low-lying shrubs. Only when you finally reach the Little Aral Sea, known as Kishi Aral, can you feel ...

Sixty years ago, the Aral Sea began drying up, leaving salty, barren soil in its wake. Lessons learned here will help other parts of the world experiencing climate change. The Aral Sea was once the ...

This post is part of Global Voices’ May 2026 Spotlight series, “Global crisis, local solutions.” This series will offer stories of resistance and successful climate action, insight into how ...

This story appears in the June 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine. “This is what the end of the world looks like,” says Yusup Kamalov, sweeping his hand toward the scrub-covered desert ...

The coastline vanished from his village long before Kenzhetay Akseitov was born. With it went the fishing that had once been the backbone of the local economy, leaving the nearby salt works as the ...