“The Caspian Sea is shrinking. It is visible to the naked eye ‘| Climate crisis news

Aktau, Kazakhstan – During her childhood, Adilbek Kozybakov’s mother has always kept a pot of sturgeon caviar in the refrigerator.

Every day, she put it on small pieces of bread and butter for him and his brothers and sisters. Caviar would keep them healthy, she believed.

Kozybakov did not love him.

It was salty and “felt like the sea,” said Kozybakov, an ecologist, now 51 years old.

He grew up in Aktau, a city in western Kazakhstan on the banks of the Caspian Sea.

But now, more than 40 years later, he looks at this family ritual with nostalgia. Today, there is no more natural caviar in Aktau stores. Sturgeons are an endangered species due to overfishing and degradation of their habitat. And soon, the sea could also disappear.

According to a study Published in Nature Magazine In April, the Caspian sea level should decrease up to 18 meters (59 feet) and could lose up to 34% of its surface by the end of the century.

The drop in water from five to 10 meters can disrupt key ecosystems in the region, including habitats for endemic Caspian seals and sturgeon, the study indicates.

For residents like Kozybakov, who is a member of a civil advisory body on the environment of the Ministry of Ecology, this has been clear for years.

“We do not have to study to know that the sea narrows. It is visible to the naked eye,” Kozybakov told Al Jazeera.

Located between Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea is the largest landlocked body in the world, part of the “average corridor” – the fastest road from China to Europe bypassing Russia and a large source of oil and gas.

Many fear that the Caspian Sea will share the fate of the neighboring Aral Sea, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which began to shrink in the 1960s while the rivers which provided it were widely used by the Soviets to irrigate the cotton fields.

Currently, the sea occupies only 10% of its original surface, and its decrease had a huge effect on the local ecosystem and the health of people.

As in the case of the Aral Sea, the Malhes of the Caspiens are not led only by climate change.

“Polluted by oil companies”

The Volga, the largest and longest river in Europe located in Russia, was the source of 80 to 85% of Caspian water.

According to experts, Russia’s water management affected the sea.

“Over the years, Russia has built many dams and water tanks on the Volga and has used its water for agriculture and industry. Consequently, much less water has flowed in the Caspian Sea,” Kozybakov told Al Jazeera.

“A hundred years ago, the sturgeon would live for many decades, and no one would touch it. He has reached huge sizes that we can see in historical photos. Today, the population of sturgeon has been destroyed by poachers and its environment polluted by oil companies. ”

The three main oil fields of Kazakhstan, discovered in the Soviet era, are exploited by foreign companies.

In February of this year, Vadim Ni, an environment lawyer in Kazakhstan behind a campaign to “save the Caspian Sea” decided to continue its own government.

He argues that state contracts signed with oil and gas multinational companies have been kept secret, which makes it impossible to determine their real impact on the Caspian Sea.

In the 1990s, Kazakhstan was newly independent, emerging after the collapse of the Soviet Union. When it has become clear that its oil and gas reserves could be extracted and transported in other countries, large energy companies and their lawyers have flocked to the country to obtain agreements.

They negotiated their contracts with the Kazakh State to be subject to international private law, ensuring that the details of the transactions have remained confidential. Consequently, in the event of a conflict between the signatories, international arbitration courts should resolve disputes.

Neither said that this was unfair and against international law, in accordance with the Aarhus Convention, which guarantees open access to environmental information.

“Oil companies do not want to reduce their income and increase their responsibility and their responsibility in the environment. Although they often do environmental research to demonstrate reasonable diligence, there is a reason to question the objectivity and reliability of these results, given their acquired interests, “said Ni.

“In addition, we discuss the energy transition and German investments in hydrogen energy on the Caspian. But it will be green energy for Europe, not for us. Hydrogen requires a huge amount of electricity produced by renewable energies and we will have to face the pollution of waste and water,” he told Al Jazeera.

The court has not admitted the case, saying that there is no reason to launch a prosecution. But neither said that if his appeal failed, he will continue the case under the international legal system.

Meanwhile, the fight to save the Caspian Sea has already started.

In Aktau, Kozybakov works with the local administration, residents and civil society groups, while raising the alarm at the national level by joining environmental initiatives.

“We want to raise these problems from below to show the government that people are affected,” Kozybakov said. “Not only are environmentalists but also average citizens, the residents of Aktau who grew up here and who are worried about the future of their children and their grandchildren.”