Aral Sea Seabed Afforestation Programme

Since the mid-2010s, Uzbekistan's Forestry Agency and Ministry of Ecology, Environmental Protection and Climate Change have run a national programme to plant salt- and drought-tolerant vegetation, chiefly saxaul (Haloxylon), across the dried bed of the Aral Sea in Karakalpakstan, aiming to suppress the sand, salt and dust storms that now sweep the exposed seabed. Uzbekistan met an initial 500,000-hectare Bonn Challenge restoration target in 2020, a decade ahead of schedule, and Mongabay reported in 2024 that roughly 1.7 million hectares had been planted over the preceding five years, with 150,000-200,000 ha planned for 2024 alone. Around 150 forestry employees and 300+ local residents from Karakalpakstan take part in planting, using both tractors (360+) and aerial seed dispersal.

A parallel, smaller UNDP-backed 'Green Aral Sea' initiative, funded in part by the government of Japan, has planted 823,000 trees on 658 hectares since 2020 and is testing methods such as moisture-retaining seed treatments to raise survival rates.

The World Bank estimates the sand, salt and dust storms cost Karakalpakstan about USD 44.2 million a year (2.1% of the region's GDP) if left unaddressed, versus roughly USD 39 million a year in estimated benefits from restoration -- the economic case cited to justify continued state investment. Saxaul shrubs 7-10 years old are reported to stop 2-4 tonnes of moving sand each.

Two caveats temper the achievement. First, seedling survival ranges from just 30% in low-rainfall years to 50-70% with adequate rain, and an outside specialist quoted by Mongabay was explicitly uncertain how worsening drought would affect the programme's long-term sustainability. Second, introducing dense stands of a single species across a very large area risks altering the habitats and migration routes of species adapted to the open former seabed, a concern raised in the same reporting. No independently measured, region-wide dust-storm reduction figure was found to corroborate the mechanistic sand-trapping claims.

Read the full analysis: https://www.diplo.news/en/articles/aralsee-gartenprojekte-statt-wasserwellen