Sustainable Cotton Production
Wednesday, 07 October 2009 09:57
Sustainable Cotton Production - An Achievable Goal in the Aral Sea Area? 
This report aims to fill knowledge gaps in our understanding of cotton production, industry and trade and to update information on the environmental catastrophe of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. The vanishing Aral Sea, which by 2007 had decreased to 10% of the size it was at the beginning of the 1960s, has become a symbol of poor environmental management. Not only that, the Aral Sea is a perfect example of how all of society and nature is affected, socially, culturally, economically, and environmentally. Overall, it shows that sustainability of cotton production needs to have environmental management as the main focus and that nature’s self-healing properties is not sufficient for repairing a man-induced distortion of the water resources when the size of the projects cover several 100 000 ha.
A report by Ingrid Karlsson and Gunilla Björklund, The Swedish Aral Sea Society in cooperation with Gudrun Sjödén Design AB.
