Country plants forest in a desert to prevent toxic salt storms

salt-tolerant tree saplings planted in the Aral Sea bed, which is now a desert.

The country of Uzbekistan in Central Asia is planting a forest of salt-resistant trees and plants in a desert to reduce salt storms. The desert used to be the Aral Sea, a massive salt lake. But it dried out when the Soviets diverted waters flowing into it, to irrigate endless cotton fields. The Soviets chose to grow only cotton in much of the region, rather than less thirsty crops that consume less water. An ecological catastrophe resulted. As Mongabay reports:

As the Aral Sea dried out, a desert, the Aralkum, emerged and continues to expand on what used to be the lakebed. Today, the bed is caked with a thick layer of salt and of pesticide runoff that crystallized, creating a toxic cocktail of sediment on the ground. When the wind blows, this salt and dust can coat entire communities….the Uzbekistan Forestry Agency and locals are trying to plant a new forest where it once rested. The main purpose of the afforestation project it to curb the harmful sandstorms and improve the ecosystem by planting desert-tolerant plants like saxaul on the lakebed.

Over the past five years, 4.2 million acres of forest have taken root at the bottom of the Aral Sea…The Forestry Agency has gathered and prepared more than 190 metric tons of seeds for sowing — desert-tolerant plants like saxaul, saltwort, ephedra and tamarisk, among others….Highly resistant to salt and sand, saxaul is one of the important desert species used in the plantation, slowing down desertification….the vegetation slows down the wind speed, curbing the rise of salt and sand particles in the air….a single saxaul shrub that’s 7 to 10 years old can stop 2-4 metric tons of moving sand…

Local populations suffer from a high incidence of respiratory diseases, anemia, cancer and digestive diseases….Kazakhstan, home to the northern half of the Aral Sea, is also implementing plantation initiatives. The country is set to plant saxaul trees on 680,000 acres of the dried-out lakebed to prevent dust storms in the region, eventually covering 2.7 million acres by 2025, according to the Kazakh ecology ministry.

The main purpose of the forestation project is to curb the harmful sandstorms and improve the ecosystem by planting desert-tolerant plants like saxaul on the lakebed.

   Haloxylon species grown on the Aral Sea bed, which is now desert.

Forests are expanding in much of the world. China’s forests have grown by about 234,000 square miles over the last 30 years, an area the size of Ukraine. The European Union has added an area the size of Cambodia to its woodlands. Costa Rica has 150% more forest than it did in 1987. Recently, carnivorous plants were reintroduced to English wetlands.

The replacement of horses with automobiles restored New England’s forests, which had mostly disappeared by 1910, but now cover much of the region. Today, Vermont is 78% forested, but in 1910, it was mostly un-forested.

When the Aral Sea dried out, it not only created a toxic desert, but also destroyed a once-thriving fishing industry. As the London Daily Mail noted, “The shrunken sea has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, leaning over as if they dropped from the air. The sea’s evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.”