{"id":27719,"date":"2017-06-12T15:11:31","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T15:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?p=27719"},"modified":"2018-04-22T11:52:12","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T15:52:12","slug":"catastrophe-of-aral-sea-shows-men-can-destroy-the-planet-warns-un-chief-guterres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/blog\/2017\/06\/catastrophe-of-aral-sea-shows-men-can-destroy-the-planet-warns-un-chief-guterres\/","title":{"rendered":"Catastrophe of Aral Sea shows ‘men can destroy the planet,’ warns Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ chief Guterres"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing his visit to Central Asia, United Nations Secretary-General<\/a> Ant\u00f3nio Guterres today visited the Aral Sea \u2013 once the world’s fourth largest inland sea, that has now shrunk to about a quarter of its original size due to human mismanagement \u2013 where he urged the world to take lesson from the catastrophe and to ensure that such tragedies are not repeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Aral Sea’s progressive disappearance was not because of climate change, it was mismanagement by humankind of water resources<\/a>,\u201d said Secretary-General Guterres after visiting Muynak, the ‘cemetery of ships’ \u2013 once a port city but now devoid of all water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also shows that if in relation to climate change, we are not able to act forcefully to tame this phenomenon, we might see this kind of tragedy multiply around the world,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

The environmental disaster was precipitated by diversion of tributary rivers which drained into the Aral Sea for irrigation projects nearly half a century ago. Lack of fresh water feeding the sea slowly dried it up, increasing the salinity of the area, with serious impact on human health and agriculture.<\/p>\n

Terming the catastrophe \u201cprobably the biggest ecological catastrophe of our time,\u201d one that demonstrated that \u201cmen can destroy the planet,\u201d the Secretary-General called on everyone to make the Aral Sea a lesson and to mobilize the whole international community to implement the Paris Agreement<\/a> on climate change and to make sure that such tragedies will not be repeated.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Mr. Guterres held a meeting with the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, where they discussed collaboration between the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ and the country in the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs<\/a>) and regional matters.<\/p>\n

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ chief also met with representatives of the civil society and visited Samarkand, one of the oldest inhabited cities in Central Asia.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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