"The drying-out of the Aral Sea is a worldwide symbol for increasing desertification that is sped up by climate change," said Olaf Tschimpke, the president of German environmental conservation group NABU.

Together with the Kazakh Embassy, NABU last week organized a talk on the fate of the Aral Sea and the millions of people living in the wider Central Asian region.

Some 60 years ago, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth-largest lake with an area of 26,000 square miles. Located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the sea was rich in plant and animal life, with thousands of fishing plants located in thriving cities along its shores.

In 1918, the Soviet government decided that the two rivers that feed the Aral Sea would be diverted to irrigate the desert and turn it into rice and cotton farmland. The construction of irrigation channels began in the 1940s. Many of them were poorly built, however, allowing water to leak or evaporate. In the late 1950s, when most of the Aral Sea's external water supply had been diverted, its gradual dying began.

Not only did the water retreat rapidly, it also became too saline for fish and plant species to survive. By 2007, it had declined to 10 percent of its original size, splitting into three lakes, one of which has since disappeared.

The retreating water left behind massive amounts of salt and toxic chemicals -- the results of weapons testing, industrial projects, pesticides and fertilizer runoff -- that are picked up and carried away by the wind as toxic dust. The little water that remains is spoiled.

As a consequence, people in the region are plagued by health problems. In 2009, the number of illnesses and deaths was greater than ever before, the German environmental group NABU claims.

Moreover, because there is no longer a sea to act as a moderating factor, the summers in the region have become hotter and the winters colder.

Experts meeting in Berlin last week called for greater international cooperation to revive the Aral Sea.

Nurgali Ashimov, the environment minister of Kazakhstan, said key to saving the sea was "the development of a multilateral cooperation between the Central Asian states." He added that Kazakhstan as the current chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has already tried to place the Aral Sea higher on the regional agenda.

Individual efforts have already paid off. The Kok-Aral dam built with money from the World Bank and Kazakhstan separated the North Aral from the remainder of the sea and has helped to raise the sea level by nearly 40 feet, causing a few dozen fishermen to return.

However, more efforts are needed to truly save the economically deprived region, the experts said.

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