DEATH RITES

DEATH RITES

Fed by clean, clear rivers, the Aral Sea was the forth-largest sea in the world.

Its banks were home to fisher folk for centuries.

Kazak and Uzbek music lulled its waves to sleep.

T’was the Tsar of Russia who annexed the land and brought powerful ships to sail on its waters. 

The seaports were full of bathers and sailors.

Fish from these waters fed on rich sea grasses and the catch was plentiful.

People grew healthy and strong from eating such tasty fish.

A factory was built upon the banks and 600 people canned fish and shipped it out to the global market.

Soviet Union came to power and built secret biological experimental bases on the islands.

Greed caused the government to order the diversion of the two main rivers whose flow fed the sea daily.

Cotton, wheat and rice were to be planted along irrigation ditches and now the waters fed the hungry plants to grow a harvest for world market.

Someone cried, ‘the sea will die.’ But no one cared enough.

So now, here is this sea, less than one tenth of its size, being choked by desert sand. There is no sea grass on its bed. No fish to feed the people. Because the cotton farmers spray chemicals for quick growth, this poison seeps into the waters. Babies are born with deformities. Those who drink from the sea develop cancer. No fish, no factory, no people. Aral Sea is a dying, shrunken relic.

Sound familiar? Cubbie Station is at the headwaters of the Murray Darling River system. It has been bought by foreign investment.

Most of the farms around Wagga Wagga have been bought by foreign investment for mega farms

Who will save our water systems? All our governments and Councils allow our land to be sold. “Foreign investment is great,” they tell us. When it’s too late, the death rites will echo down history corridors, and we will wonder why we stood by and did nothing.