In Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, farmer Ayapbergen Ajimuratov is turning one of the region's most enduring problems into a livelihood. As the Aral Sea has shrunk over decades, it has left behind land saturated with saline water too salty to drink or irrigate crops with. Rather than treating it as waste, Ayapbergen has channelled it into six aquaculture ponds on a single hectare of land, becoming one of the first farmers in the district to cultivate Artemia and raise snakehead fish on a circular system where each stage feeds the next.

With support from a UNDP project backed by the Government of the Russian Federation, he received the ponds along with solar panels, a power transformer, a freezer for the harvest, and an on-site cabin. A community water purification system supplies around 1,500 cubic metres of saline water year-round. The farm is now producing fish and employing local workers - a small but meaningful step in rebuilding livelihoods in one of the world's most environmentally damaged regions.

Read the full story at the UNDP Uzbekistan website.