Oscar Turner is the co-founder of Project Amu Darya, a documentary and environmental education initiative focusing on the ongoing impact of the Aral Sea Crisis in Uzbekistan.
In 2023, the Project Amu Darya team spent two months traveling the length of the Amu Darya Delta interviewing students, professors, ex-fishermen, museum directors, NGOs, and community leaders. The team collected oral histories of the Aral Sea Crisis to better understand the impacts and experiences of the USSR’s intensive irrigation of the Amu Darya river: whereby the downstream Aral Sea was turned from the world’s fourth largest lake into the world’s youngest desert.
Now, the Project Amu Darya team is developing a screening program across schools in Uzbekistan to support increasing youth engagement in environmentalism. At the same time, the Project is using international screenings to raise the profile of the oft-forgotten ongoing impacts of the Aral Sea Crisis.
