High Caspian week: interview with Galina Chernova

Executive Director of the «Globus» Center for Environmental and Legal Initiative and co-founder of the Save the Caspian Sea environmental movement.

The Caspian Sea High Week took place in four cities across Kazakhstan, organized by the Save the Caspian Sea environmental movement. At one of the roundtables during this event, Olga Lakustova, creator of the KELP FARMS, presented her initiative. Galina Chernova, Executive Director of the «Globus» Center for Environmental and Legal Initiative and co-founder of the Save the Caspian Sea environmental movement, discusses the outcomes of the Caspian High Week and the region’s environmental challenges.

«Why was this High Week organized? The fact is that under the Tehran Convention, August 12 was declared Caspian Day, but unfortunately, this day has not gained widespread recognition or publicity, including in Kazakhstan. It hasn’t become a national day and was typically observed very locally. To increase awareness and popularization of this Day among our country’s population, we conceived the Caspian Sea High Week, which covered four cities at once—Atyrau, Aktau, Astana, and Almaty. We needed to bring Caspian issues to as many people as possible.»

— Did you succeed?

— Yes. We managed to hold conferences, photo exhibitions in four cities across Kazakhstan, documentary film screenings, and generate reaction and resonance. Of course, our organized media forum also delivered results: we achieved the maximum number of publications in mass media and internet resources in our country.

And finally, apparently as a result of our High Week, Caspian Sea issues were recently addressed at the meeting of heads of state from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where they were voiced by our President K.K. Tokayev. This means Caspian problems were raised at a very high interstate and intergovernmental level! It has now been decided to create a management center for Caspian Sea issues, and through it, at the SCO level, to address the challenges and threats facing the Caspian region and countries included in the Caspian Sea atlas today. This news is inspiring and sets an optimistic tone!

— A program to save the Caspian was also adopted at the conference, wasn’t it?

Absolutely correct. Prior to this, we, the founders of the international Save the Caspian Sea movement, traveled through the regions to gather proposals from local residents, opinion leaders, independent experts, and environmentalists, and formulated 10 steps to save the Caspian Sea. We presented these proposals during our conference in Astana and then submitted them as a finished document to the Kazakhstan government. This document was placed on President K.K. Tokayev’s desk. I think it was largely thanks to this document, developed through collective intelligence, that the SCO made this very important decision for us.

This program provides the foundation for developing a roadmap to save the Caspian Sea, including issues related to the Caspian’s shallowing—that is, addressing the problem of increasing water flows from rivers feeding into it (primarily the Volga and Ural rivers). We need to solve the problem of these rivers being over-regulated. While hydroelectric plants have been built on the Volga, and their reservoirs consume vast amounts of water, reservoirs were created on the Ural River to regulate water flows. Now hydraulic facilities and reservoirs are being built on the Ural for water accumulation, and we, living in the river’s lower reaches, may not receive the water volumes we need. And of course, the Caspian Sea doesn’t receive them either. The Volga provided 85% of water flow to the Caspian, the Ural about 3-5%, the entire Ural basin up to 12%, but now this water is practically absent—it’s not reaching the sea. This problem must be solved at the interstate level.

Next—organizing interstate monitoring of the Caspian Sea waters, especially in the Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani sectors, because the sea is effectively ‘blind’ today. No proper environmental monitoring is being conducted—comprehensive, in-depth monitoring with sample collection and research into water conditions and aquatic life. Shallowing levels should also be controlled and calculated not based on computer mathematical forecasts, but through actual measurements, long-term observation, and monitoring.

The Tehran Convention was adopted for the Caspian in 2003, but it remains a framework document—narrow in scope—since four protocols originally developed for this convention have still not been adopted and ratified by the Caspian region states. These protocols define mechanisms for Caspian research, biodiversity and fish fauna conservation, and addressing maritime incidents and Caspian water pollution from oil spills. These protocols still have no legal force, meaning the Tehran Convention effectively remains toothless and protects nothing in terms of ensuring sustainable Caspian development and preserving its ecosystem. The Tehran Convention’s title sounds very significant and impressive: ‘Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea,’ but in reality, it protects nothing!

Additionally, we demand disclosure of PSA (Production Sharing Agreement) and JV (Joint Venture) contracts. The environmental components of these contracts remain undisclosed, and we don’t know exactly what standards and norms form their foundation, or why seals and sturgeon are being expelled from the sea, condemning themselves to certain death.

— These are contracts with subsoil users operating on the Caspian?

Yes, primarily with oil companies and consortiums currently developing massive oil deposits—both off the Azerbaijan’s coast and at Kazakhstan’s Kashagan, a huge oil field discovered in the northeastern part of the Caspian Sea. It ranks practically sixth in the world for oil reserves in target deposits. The NCOC consortium (North Caspian Operating Company) is now developing this Kashagan deposit and has effectively already destroyed sturgeon migration routes, their feeding grounds, and nursery areas. And in the ice near their artificially constructed islands in the Caspian waters, Caspian seal pups are born—the seal itself being endemic, found nowhere else in the world. This Kashagan oil field today poses a serious threat to preserving the Caspian Sea’s ecosystem and biota.

— Olga Lakustova, founder of KELP FARMS, participated in the conference. What impression did the presentation of this project make on you? Could it help the Caspian?

You know, the information presented was simply a revelation to me! Your company offers real steps and mechanisms for cleaning the Caspian Sea waters from oil spills and petroleum pollution. This is very important for us, because data from the Russian company ‘Transparent Caspian World,’ which conducts satellite research of the sea, shows that the sea is effectively uncontrolled by states today, and oil spills come primarily from ships and various vessels. Only a few ship owners actually deliver their waste, ballast water, and petroleum-contaminated water to port facilities—mostly everything is discharged into the sea. Therefore, it’s hard to overestimate the significance of your proposals and project for the Caspian Sea.

The only thing that raises questions: you currently work in the Black Sea basin, while the water composition (salinity, for example), biota composition, fish fauna, and overall biodiversity in the Black and Caspian seas are quite different. These are different ecosystems with different inhabitants. Therefore, I think you need to develop a pilot demonstration project and see how your algae will behave when introduced to Caspian Sea waters, and how effective and safe they will be there.

— This is a solvable challenge, since our team includes scientists who can develop projects for any sea, selecting both appropriate algae species and necessary farm designs. What do you think—would government and business representatives in Kazakhstan be interested in our project?

I believe so, yes. Port facilities could well be interested in this, as they currently face problems with falsified reporting on waste disposal, ballast water, and wastewater that vessels simply discharge into the sea in violation of Kazakhstan’s environmental legislation. I think subsoil users and industrial enterprises operating in Caspian waters would also be interested. Transportation companies and ship owners could also find this project appealing.

— Do you think it’s possible at all to restore the ecological balance in the Caspian Sea?

Yes, but a great deal needs to be done for this, especially considering the sea’s dramatic shallowing. The Caspian has natural cycles of regression and transgression. Regression is when the sea retreats into itself, exposing coastal areas, and now the seabed is being exposed much more rapidly than in previous years. This is linked to the overall reduction in water flow from rivers feeding into the Caspian, global warming, and changes in the rate at which water evaporated from water bodies returns as precipitation. So now, due to climate change, there’s a disruption in the natural cycle we all studied in geography class—the water cycle in nature.

Another reason is human impact, as enormous oil deposits are extracted from underground petroleum horizons, leaving voids behind. There’s suspicion that the Caspian seabed is settling to exactly this level, and with this seabed subsidence, the water surface level is also dropping.

Photo: Save the Caspian sea https://savethecaspiansea.com/

The causes of the Caspian’s dramatic shallowing are still poorly understood and need to be studied. The possibilities for ecosystem restoration will depend, among other things, on the transgression period, when the sea will again begin to mysteriously regain its former water volumes and spill onto coastal territories, filling them with water. It’s hard to say how the sea will behave in the future, but there are very serious forecasts that it will continue shallowing until 2054. This data comes from German and Dutch scientists, but they calculated all this based on mathematical models using computer programs, and whether one can ‘verify harmony with algebra’ is a question.

— But the situation is still reversible?

I think so, because the sea has existed since the Paleozoic era, when there was a huge Tethys Ocean that included the Black Sea basin, the Caspian and Aral seas—it was a unified system. At one time there was the Khazar transgression of the Caspian, when the sea lapped at the level of present-day Samara, and the Khvalynian transgression, when it reached the level of Uralsk city in Kazakhstan. Can you imagine? And this wasn’t so long ago! Well, and besides that, oil isn’t eternal—it will run out in about 40 years, and the sea will reclaim what’s its own. The main thing is to help it now. And KELP FARMS is one of the lifelines worth grasping to begin the process of cleaning the sea, primarily from oil pollution.

— How important is the Caspian for Kazakhstan? What is its significance?

First and foremost, from a geographical perspective, it’s a body of water in semi-desert zones with a very arid climate. On our territory, it essentially shapes the climate, providing breezes, moderating the climate by making it less arid and not so sharply continental—more temperate—bringing humidity and precipitation, and supporting the development of enormous biota. The Caspian is home to over 200 bird species that use wetlands for nesting and as transit corridors for subsequent migration to other parts of our planet, such as Southeast Asia, Indochina, Africa, and Siberia. The Caspian also plays a major role in precipitation formation in central Russia, as huge caravans of clouds move precisely there and pour down life-giving rain. This alone represents the invaluable significance of the Caspian Sea, including for the entire territory of the globe.

From the perspective of preserving fish fauna, our Caspian is a unique body of water: it’s home to relict sturgeon species—contemporaries of dinosaurs—the endemic Caspian seal, and another 64 commercially significant fish species. This water body is responsible for the region’s climatic well-being, for preserving biodiversity on planet Earth, and for maintaining unique biota and endemic species. To lose the Caspian would mean losing a unique ecosystem! This would cause a catastrophe of planetary scale. We’ve already lost the Aral Sea, and that’s a real catastrophe that occurred practically before the eyes of one generation in our country!

— Is the Aral lost permanently?

At least for the next fifty years it’s lost. Only a narrow strip of water surface remains in its northern part, and only because they managed to build a dam there that prevents water from flowing to the southern Aral, where there was a risk of complete evaporation. Why was it lost? Because two rivers that flowed into the Aral—the Syr Darya and Amu Darya—were used during Soviet times for growing rice and cotton. These are water-intensive crops, and the water from these rivers was essentially diverted to rice paddies and cotton field irrigation. If they restore the Aral’s water source by stopping the diversion of these rivers’ water to paddies and fields, the sea will fill up again, but so far there are no prerequisites for this.

For 30 years they’ve been dancing around the Aral Sea, ‘consuming’ so many grants supposedly for its salvation, but nothing has been done! And while on the Uzbek side of this territory some vegetation is being planted that’s more resistant to arid climate and salty dust that rises from the Aral’s bottom and essentially makes this desert lifeless, on the Kazakhstani side there are only empty projects and inconsequential discussions.

The fact that the Aral has now become a global catastrophe is evidenced by satellite images. Huge clouds of salty dust rise over this zone and spread, depending on wind patterns, either to the Pamirs and Tian Shan mountains, or are carried over long distances and settle in the Alps. Governments and scientists in these regions complain that glaciers are melting very rapidly (since salting ice makes it melt quickly), and glaciers there essentially aren’t accumulating their annual mass. Rivers in countries bordering the Pamirs and Tian Shan, as well as European countries adjacent to the Alps, are mainly replenished by glacial water. So here’s another reason why rivers aren’t achieving their annual water flow necessary to provide drinking water to peoples of countries that either directly border the Aral or suffer serious consequences from its disappearance, like many Western European countries. Thus, the Aral’s disappearance is indeed a planetary-scale catastrophe!

Applying this sad experience to the Caspian, it’s hard to imagine what this could all lead to. Five countries are part of the Caspian Sea atlas, and of course each is interested in keeping the sea alive, with a stable ecosystem and biodiversity capable of further development and able to provide these countries with prosperity, moderate climate, and reliable fisheries as the foundation of regional social stability.

— So international cooperation is important here: is it working?

Only two countries are part of the Aral Sea atlas, and even they couldn’t properly coordinate their actions to achieve positive results. Here we have five countries, and they’re pulling in different directions. Take Azerbaijan—there have been problems with Baku Bay for a long time, and this was even shown in Leonid Gaidai’s film ’12 Chairs.’ Remember how Father Fyodor emerges from the sea covered in oil that couldn’t be washed off? Even then, decisive measures should have been taken to clean the water not only in Baku Bay but throughout the Absheron Peninsula!

From the Russian side, as Roshydromet employees reported to us at the time, there were still 50 monitoring stations located in the North Caspian waters in the early 2000s. But they typically collected only climate data: water level, temperature data, wind direction, and so on. As for ecological stations—I don’t know if they exist there.

On Kazakhstan’s side, there are no ecological monitoring stations in Caspian Sea waters. Although we insisted that at least at the level of artificially constructed islands from which oil is extracted at the Kashagan field, primitive posts should be established that would conduct ecological monitoring and collect specifically environmental data.

Turkmenistan, until recently, paid no attention to the Caspian at all. Although due to the sea’s dramatic shallowing, according to scientists’ forecasts, the large lagoon-bay in western Turkmenistan, Kara-Bogaz-Gol, may cease to exist in the very near future. Regarding Iran—they have the South Caspian, the deepest part, but according to German and Dutch scientists’ forecasts, shallowing will also occur there, and many bays and inlets along the Iranian coast will undergo changes, while some will simply cease to exist.

As we can see, the challenges and threats related to the Caspian’s dramatic shallowing facing all Caspian region countries are quite serious, and they all must engage in this work promptly, substantively, and with the development of concrete actions. I hope that the center they plan to organize under SCO auspices will outline the consolidation of these efforts, collaboration, including the development of a joint and specific program to save the Caspian.

— What is the personal meaning of environmental activism for you? Why do you do this?

I am a person of faith, and therefore the phrase ‘God’s world’ is not empty words for me. The famous poet Fyodor Tyutchev once wrote wonderful verses about nature, reflecting its essence and mystery:

‘Not what you think, nature is: Not a cast, not a soulless face… There is a soul in it, there is freedom in it, There is love in it, there is language in it…’

Look at what beauty nature is filled with! Take even individual elements: air, wind, water—all of this is itself a mystery and enigma. And the earth that feeds us?! I consider it my duty, without lofty words, to simply defend this God’s world. I disagree with how it’s being destroyed to serve today’s wild market and business. This is unacceptable! How can one destroy the harmony of this world, its mystery, its grace? At least for me, this is simply impossible. If tomorrow forests, fields, meadows, air, water, clouds carrying moisture and coolness suddenly cease to exist, I’ll say: stop the planet, I’m getting off—I’m not going your way!