Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 17 – The Save the Caspian Sea organization, created by Kazakh activists in December 2024, held an international conference in Astana this week to focus attention on the environmental problems facing the Caspian Sea and the risks that they, together with reduced flows of water into that sea, will lead to its death.
Apparently modeled on the anti-nuclear Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement that Kazakh activists established at the end of Soviet times, the Save the Caspian Sea group unites environmental activists from a variety of countries in the region and more generally (casp-geo.ru/ekologicheskoe-dvizhenie-spasem-kaspijskoe-more-provelo-konferentsiyu/).
Just how serious they believe the situation surrounding the Caspian was highlighted in the name of the conference “The Caspian on the Brink – YOU.SEA.PROBLEM and by speeches of the organizer, Vadim Ni, and by participants who focused on the contamination of the sea as well as its drying up.
It is not surprising that Kazakhs took the lead: they have the precedent of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement, and the problems of the Caspian Sea appear to be more intense in the northern portions of the sea than elsewhere (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/07/northern-sections-of-caspian-sea.html).
Activists from international environmental protection groups also took part as did experts from Caspian littoral states, although Russia was underrepresented given that its government believes that the problems of the Caspian are temporary and will be corrected in time by natural forces (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/07/german-and-dutch-specialists-say.html).
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