For thousands of years, human beings have avoided crossing the Taklamakan Desert. Now China is raising fish there

For more than 1,500 years, the merchants who traveled the Silk Road dared with oceans, mountains and jungles, they dared with endless walks, with warlords, with hunger and pain and the cold; with one of the most destructive epidemics in history; but they did not dare with the Taklamakan.

That sand hell (whose name comes from the word ugiur for “abandon, leave alone, leave behind”) is not only the second largest dune desert in the world, but it moved, invaded and devoured everything around it.

It’s been a nightmare for thousands of years. Well, now, China is farming fish right there.

As? As it sounds, Xinjiang has been committed to producing fish and seafood “in the middle of the desert” for years. And no, obviously, it has nothing to do with “releasing fish in the sand” as if it were worms from Arrakis.

The key is saline-alkaline water, lined ponds and recirculation techniques. It is not a revolutionary approach (already We have talked about similar techniques), but without a doubt Chinese producers are taking it to another level. Xinjiang aquaculture production was 196,500 tons in 2024.

And, of course, the “desert seafood” boom raises questions about water, energy and scalability.

From the promise of fresh fish… We are talking about a very harsh physical context (annual rainfall of less than 100 mm, very high evaporation and salinized soils): thus, the entire Tarim sub-basin depends on melting snow to provide water.

Therefore, on the table, there are two clear approaches: the first, which has become popular in the Westtalks about the construction of monitored ponds. And this is already, in itself, very effective: “species such as grouper, mullet, shrimp, oysters and pearl musselsyes reach commercial size with survival rates close to 99%”, always according to the available data.

But that’s just the beginning; just a proof of concept.

…to the promise of mar. As explained by several chinese mediathe final horizon of the project is much more ambitious: creating a sea in the middle of the desert.

That is, take advantage of the water associated with saline-alkaline soils and saline lakes to simulate marine conditions with technical adjustments, circulation systems and cultivation of microorganisms. And thus be able to breed species normally linked to the sea.

But can that be done? Of course you can. We have the technology to do it. In a world where aquaculture already exceeds extractive fishing in volume, the interesting question is not that: the question is whether the model is scalable without aggravating tensions over water in a hyper-arid region dependent on snowmelt.

What the industry that sees tons of fish emerging from the desert is asking is something even more basic: is it possible that the beginning of the end of commercial fishing is beginning?

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