DAMS PLANNED FOR TURKEY'S BIOSPHERE RESERVE

Turkey's sole UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserve, the Macahel basin in northeastern Artvin province famous for its honeybees, has been approved as the location for eight new hydroelectric dams.

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Tarih  Tarih : 19.08.2009

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The Macahel basin on the Georgian border, Turkey’s only internationally recognized biosphere reserve, is abuzz with locals angry over the government’s plan to construct eight new hydroelectric dams. ‘They said they would give us jobs and roads, but now we see that they just wanted to steal our rivers,’ says one local resident.

Turkey’s sole UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserve, the Macahel basin in northeastern Artvin province famous for its honeybees, has been approved as the location for eight new hydroelectric dams.

Mountains surround the basin, also known as Camili, on three sides with the Georgian border making up the northern boundary. The basin includes three main valleys that have been a safe haven for a wide variety of animal and plant life.

According to UNESCO’s “Statutory Framework of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves,” such areas are created “to promote and demonstrate a balanced relationship between humans and the biosphere.”

Yet Turkey’s energy watchdog has authorized construction of the eight new dams as part of a project to exploit the region’s rivers for electricity. Locals across the northeast are outraged at the 550 dams of various sizes planned for the country’s eastern Black Sea region.

The Macahel basin is part of the Karçal Mountains Important Plant Area, one of 122 such areas in Turkey, according to UNESCO, which notes that Macahel is the only area where the Caucasus bee, one of the world’s three most important bee species, has remained without its purity being diluted.

The brown bear and roe deer are among the main species protected in the Macahel basin. Other important carnivore species in the area include wolves, jackals, red foxes, badgers, martens and weasels, all of which are under threat in the rest of the country. According to UNESCO, the Macahel forests are also among the important habitats for the endemic Caucasian black grouse.

The basin’s eight villages are home to 1,213 people living in 268 households, all of whom are essentially blocked off from the outside world for four to six months out of the year due to snow.

NGOs gather in protest

Representatives from dozens of nongovernmental organizations came to the area’s main village, Camili, over the weekend for a meeting held by the Macahel Foundation under the name “H2SOS.”

Foundation President Bahattin Sarı described the likely impact of the dams as “disastrous,” adding that “a 3-meter-wide and 85-kilometer-long tunnel will be built and the earth dug out will be taken away in 10,000 trucks.”

Nature Foundation President Güven Eken said most of the region’s rivers had been sold for use in generating electricity.

The head of the Turkish Foundation for the Protection of Natural Habitats, or TEMA, said the environmental group had initiated a study on what the dams would cost the area. “We formed a team that includes sociologists. Our first aim is to prepare an extensive report,” Ümit Gürses said.

‘Unscientific environmentalism’

The Gülkar Energy Production and Trade copmany has received a license from the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, or EMRA, and will begin building a 5.05-megawatt hydroelectric plant within a month. The construction is expected to be completed within a year.

Assoc. Prof. Hayretting Gülbin, a partner in Gülkar, told daily Radikal that attacks on proposed dams are part of a broader ploy. “This kind of environmentalism has no scientific basis,” he said. “UNESCO, which declared the region a biosphere reserve, also supports renewable energy.”

Gülbin also said the Forestry Department’s science board had declared that the project had no negative environmental ramifications.

“TEMA has a long-term strategic plan for the area and is limiting the region’s economic potential to insure that locals migrate,” he said.

The professor added that though 600 trees would be uprooted as a result of Gülkar’s dam project, the company would in exchange pay a fee to the Environment Ministry that would be used to plant four times as many trees and pay for their upkeep for five years.

Local concerns

Local livelihoods depend on the forests, said Camili Association President Hasan Yavuz, who explained how residents had altered their lives to protect the forest.

“We used to cut down the trees for wood, but then realized that this would not be sustainable and switched to beekeeping,” he said, adding that locals had begun to impose a ban on plastic bottles in the region five years ago.

“And just when we were getting results, this hydroelectric dam problem came up,” he said.

Speaking after the two-day meeting by the NGOs, Ekrem Paker, a local sitting at the village coffee house, said: “They promised us jobs and roads. It appears their aim was to steal our rivers.”

SOURCE : HURRIYETDAILYNEWS.COM
SERKAN OCAK / ARTVİN - Radikal


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