Су астындағы тіршілік туралы ашық сабақ материалы

Life below water: the event held within the walls of the university

The sustainable use of marine resources, along with other environmental issues, remains a current global concern. SDG 14 "Life below water" is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2015. Given the recent concern about the Caspian Sea's shallowing, a discussion on the matter was held on April 5, 2024, at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. The event was planned by first-year master's students Tursynbay A. N. and Shuktayeva D. M. majoring in "Foreign philology" and third-year students of the specialty 6B02304-Translation studies, with the supervisors Aitmukhanbetova A. S and Baieli A. Zh.

The project addressed concerns such as ocean pollution, ecological conservation, and overfishing. One of the most important challenges endangering life beneath the sea is the increasing shallowing of the Caspian and Aral Seas, two of the planet's biggest inland bodies of water. These ecological disasters serve as stark reminders of the repercussions of irresponsible human behavior, as well as the critical necessity for collective response.

The Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake and located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, has been rapidly diminishing since the mid-twentieth century. Poor management of water resources, particularly through huge irrigation projects diverting water from the rivers that supply the sea, has resulted in catastrophic desiccation.

In addition to that, in recent decades, the Caspian Sea's water levels have dropped significantly, resulting in the emergence of huge coastal areas that were previously submerged. This phenomenon, mostly caused by climate change and excessive water extraction for agricultural and industrial uses, has catastrophic effects for biodiversity and local communities that rely on the sea for nourishment and survival.