My previous blogs on the subject of climate change and organic cotton have mostly dealt with the manufacrturing processes and the damage caused by fertilisers and chemicals.
As I read more about cotton manufacturing, the effects on the planet seem to be far wider-reaching.
Whilst researching the range of EarthPositive clothing that we offer, I read about the tragedy of the Aral Sea. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/678898.stm
Formerly the fourth largest body of inland water in the world, the Aral Sea has shrunk to 15% of its former volume. The waters have receded so much, that there is not a drop as far as the eye can see.
Its salinity has risen by almost 600% and all 24 native species of fish are gone from its waters which encompassed over 1100 islands, lagoons and shallow straits. Over 40,000 km2 of the former sea bed is now exposed - an area equivalent in size to six million football pitches. Trawlers which used to land 40,000 tonnes of fish every year, lie stranded and commercial fishing activities have long since ground to a halt.
It sounds like the sort of damage that could only be inflected by a natural disaster but the truth is that this massive ecological and human disaster was casued by Cotton production in the former Soviet Union.
In 1960 a project began to divert the primary Ama Dariya and Syrdariya rivers that fead this inland-sea to irrigate the 1.47 million hectares of cotton fields which currently consume over 20 km3 of water annually.
What’s more shocking is that that up to 60% of water diverted from the rivers fails to reach the fields. A recent report suggested that irrigation and drainage infrastructure is beginning to fall apart; canals are silted up or damaged, gates are broken or non-existent, and pumps are held together by improvised repairs and parts cannibalised from other machinery.
What at first seems to be snow on the dry seabed is actually salt which is blown as far as the Himalayas, spreading the salty soil right into the agricultural lands. As the agricultural land becomes contaminated by the salt, the farmers try to combat it by and flushing the soil with huge volumes of water. What water makes its way back to the Sea is increasingly saline and polluted by pesticides and fertilizer.
The human disaster is manifested by a huge increase in Tuberculosis, caused by a weakened immune system due to poor nutrition. Cancer and Infant mortality are 30 times higher than they used to be because the drinking water is heavily polluted with salt, cotton fertilisers and pesticides.
In July 2003, the Kazakhstan government, with funding from the World Bank, began a massive restoration project for the Aral Sea. The southern Aral Sea was been deemed beyond salvaging, so the restoration effort will focus on the smaller, but less polluted and saline, northern sea, fead by the Syrdariya river.
The World Bank effort will construct a permanent dyke between the two portions of the Sea, sealing the southern half’s fate. The northern Aral Sea will be allowed to refill from the inflow of the Syrdar’ya, and though it is never expected to regain its former extent, planners think that it will refill enough to support fishing and also help to stabilize the continental climate—increasing rainfall, smoothing out winter-summer temperature extremes, and suppressing dust storms.
The picture above shows the progress 2years after the dyke was completed (bottom)
Changes in farming methods have also helped to slow down the shrinking sea but it will be years yet before what is left of the sea begins to grow again.
All of this was done in the name of cotton - grown where it would not grow naturally.
If we had time to tell this tale to our customers, I’m sure that they’d all agree to at least think a little more about which way to choose between Oragnic Cotton and harmful cotton.
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Fairtrade Cotton T-shirt.
