Upstream hydroelectric dams have already inhibited the recovery of Iraq’s legendary Mesopotamian Marshes. A massive dam currently under construction in Turkey may wipe them out completely. For the next two months, I’ll be taking a break from my usual Green Prophet posts to report on a transnational environmental issue: the Ilısu Dam currently under construction [...]
The Birdmen of Istanbul, a film by Ali Naki Tez, follows the reclusive, fascinating old men who have devoted their lives to tending Istanbul’s songbirds. The documentary opens on two old men discussing a mysterious ailment. It alienates you from your family, your work, your regular social circle, they say, before revealing the culprit: bird disease. [...]
Two thousand years ago, Lake Bafa was a bay in the Aegean Sea, known as the Gulf of Latmus. The remains of ancient Byzantine monasteries can still be found on its islets and nearby mountains. Today, the lake in Turkey’s Muğla Province is home to remarkable biodiversity: 261 bird species, 25 plant species, 22 reptile [...]
There are currently 1.6 million automobiles on Istanbul’s roads, according to Embarq Türkiye — and each day, 640 more are registered. Following British and German models, the Turkish Finance Ministry has begun designing a new scheme for taxes on motor vehicles and their purchase, reports Turkish paper Hürriyet Daily News. Under the plan, the taxes will [...]
Two years after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, the Turkish government is moving ahead with nuclear power despite public opposition. Hundreds of Turkish activists formed a human chain across a bridge over Istanbul’s Golden Horn on March 10, the day before the second anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that triggered the world’s second [...]
“Polluting nature is your problem, your law is a lie” and “Withdraw the Nature Law” read signs from protests last weekend in Ankara. On Sunday, Turkey’s Green and Future Left parties organized small but loud protests in six cities around Turkey to oppose the country’s new Protection of Nature and Biological Diversity Law. The draft [...]
New underwater photos from five different locations around the Gulf of Izmir confirm that life is returning to the once-blighted water. The gulf was used as an open sewer system from the 1960s until 2000, when the city of Izmir initiated the Big Gulf Project to clean it up. Those efforts are paying off, according [...]
Until a recent urban renewal project that forced most residents out, the neighborhood of Tarlabaşı was home to a diverse array of Istanbul’s minority populations. In the early 20th century, Tarlabaşı’s winding streets and colorful buildings were home to many of the city’s Greek residents. After violence against the Greek population their mass emigration from [...]
The Zorlu Group, one of Turkey’s biggest business conglomerates, has its eyes on another behemoth: Israel’s largest gas field, the Leviathan. Under a new plan proposed by Zorlu, an undersea pipeline would deliver 8-10 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year from the Leviathan, 130 kilometers west of Haifa, to Turkey’s southern coast, reports [...]
Surrounded by mountains, Turkey’s fourth largest city, Bursa, is already one of the country’s most verdant metropolises — and it’s about to get a little bit greener. A mosque slated to be built in the western city of Bursa will produce 120 kilowatts of electricity from solar and wind energy, according to Turkish paper Hürriyet Daily [...]
A natural retreat from the traffic and crowds of Istanbul, the 296-hectare Atatürk Arboretum, above, receives few visitors. But it contains more than 2,000 foreign and native plant species, including some species that can’t be found anywhere else in Turkey. Situated within the city’s Belgrade Forest, the arboretum is a research site for Turkish and foreign scientists, [...]
“Empty your vacuum bag often” urges Mrs. Energy (“Energy Hanım”) in this advertisement. An energy conservation campaign recently launched by the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Family and Social Policies has already aroused ire among female commentators in the country. The plump poster-wife for the campaign always appears in domestic [...]
Turkey has been importing condensate from the Khor Mor gas field in Iraqi Kurdistan since October, with daily shipments now reaching 15,000 barrels. Until recently, bowing to the Iraqi central government’s claim that it controls all oil within the country, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) only exported oil through a pipeline controlled by Baghdad. But [...]
The occasional bicycle rack can be found near pedestrian promenades in Istanbul, such as the one pictured above on the Asian side of the city. But the city’s heavy traffic and reckless drivers discourage many would-be bicycle commuters. Developing a more bike-friendly Istanbul was the goal of BikeLab Istanbul, a workshop held in late December and [...]
Remember them in the movie Star Wars? Historic Turkish Wonder under threat from severe man-caused erosion in the coming years. A UNESCO World Heritage site, and a favorite backdrop for hot ballooning in Turkey, the iconic “fairy chimney” rock formations of Cappadocia, in central Anatolia, draw more than 1 million tourists to Turkey each year. Only [...]
A family was found dead on Thursday in Istanbul, reports Turkish daily Today’s Zaman, after carbon monoxide fumes from their coal-fired heating stove leaked out and poisoned them. Since 2002, carbon monoxide poisoning has claimed approximately 350 lives in Turkey, according to Turkish Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin. In the southern province of Gaziantep alone, 2,771 residents [...]
As Turkey moves to build its first nuclear power plant, there are troubling signs that the country’s nuclear energy institute is not monitoring nuclear hazards carefully. An abandoned lead factory yard used as a playground by local children in Turkey’s western İzmir Province contains high levels of radiation, according to Greenpeace Turkey, yet the Turkish Nuclear [...]
With the world’s fourth largest number of planned coal-fired power plants, Turkey is flouting international concern about climate change. As the United Nation’s climate change talks in Doha enter their second day, Turkey has been called out on its irresponsible climate policies with the “Fossil of the Day” award. Although Turkey has kept a low [...]
The Aras River basin is home to more than half of Turkey’s bird species, but a planned hydroelectric dam would alter the river’s marshy ecosystem, driving away the birds. That’s the fear of Çağan Şekercioğlu, president and founder of Turkey’s KuzeyDoğa wildlife preservation NGO. Green Prophet has written about Şekercioğlu’s groundbreaking research, teaching, and conservation work before. Now, [...]
Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz walks to the podium to speak during a ceremony marking the start of exploratory oil and gas drilling by Turkey in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot northern half of Cyprus, near Singrasi village, in April. Turkey’s onshore wells near Singrasi came as hostilities ratcheted up between Turkey and the Cyprus Republic [...]
Despite all the criticism the plan received from urban planners, lawyers, activists, academics, and concerned citizens, Istanbul has begun remodeling its central square, a focal point for transportation and protests. In a preview of how the square will be isolated from the rest of the city after the renovation is finished, barriers have gone up [...]
ProGen, a Turkish seed developer and supplier, has specialized in crop varieties that can withstand the hot Mediterranean climate. As climate conditions in European countries increasingly resemble those of their southern neighbors, European farmers are seeking new strains of staple crops that can adjust to the new climate. A pan-European research project, EASTBRED, brought European [...]
Turkey’s total wheat production declined 14 percent in 2012 from the year before. Climate change has caused a steady decline in Turkey’s wheat production since 2010, according to Hakan Esen, a representative of the Central Anatolian Exporters’ Association (OAIB). Speaking to reporters in Jakarta, Esen announced that Turkey’s what flour exports to Indonesia would fall [...]
Tekirdağ Province, in northwestern Turkey, will be the site of several new wind power plants over the next few years. This has been a big year for wind power in Turkey, with more than 5,000 MW of wind power projects (WPPs) licensed and awaiting permitting. Foreign companies such as Nordex and GE are jumping into the [...]
Polluting Paradise, the latest film by Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, documents the disgusting damage caused by a garbage dump near the Black Sea village of Çamburnu. Ten years ago, Turkish government authorities decided to transform an abandoned copper mine in northeastern Turkey into the biggest landfill in the eastern Black Sea region. Despite promises that the waste [...]
Hayrettin Karaca, 90, faces up to six years in prison for championing the environmental causes to which he has devoted his life. Turkey is not a country where environmental awareness is terribly high. But one man has done more to solve this problem, as well as the forces that threaten Turkey’s natural habitats, than almost [...]
Giacomo de Stefano raises his hat as he rows into Istanbul’s Golden Horn, the final stretch of a trans-Europe experiment in sustainable travel. It shouldn’t be any surprise that a man who adopted Venice as his hometown loves to be near water. But the way 44-year-old de Stefano decided to raise awareness about this precious [...]
Despite its vast solar and wind energy potential, Turkey’s renewable resources have only been developed in small pockets of the country, such as the windy Aegean island of Bozcaada (pictured above). With European countries having already tapped most of their low-hanging renewable energy development opportunities, Turkey is perfectly poised to become the new renewable energy [...]
Defying the Iraqi central government, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has begun selling gas directly to Turkey. Crude oil sales will also begin soon. Five tankers crossed the border from the KRG into Turkey in July, marking the first exchange of oil or gas between the two governments. The trade was just a harbinger of [...]
The incidence and intensity of natural disasters, such as the flash floods last month that killed 12 people in Samsun, Turkey, are expected to increase as climate change intensifies. A two-year project to improve the disaster response capacities of Turkey and the Western Balkans has just been launched, reports the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk [...]
New regulations will restrict fishermen in Turkey from catching juvenile fish and using dragnets in shallow waters. But environmentalists say the laws don’t go far enough. The new fishing season in Turkey will kick off in just a few days, on Sept. 1. In preparation, Turkey’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock has proposed new [...]
Rising international petroleum prices are bad news for Turkey, which imports 90 percent of the oil it consumes. Turkey’s dependence on imported oil has already been key in creating its $86.6 billion current account deficit, and will continue to hold the country back from reaching its full growth potential, according to analysts from three major [...]
The more than 20 hydroelectric projects that Turkey has built on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers have been sharply criticized for displacing populations and harming the local environment. Now it’s even easier for hydro companies to build destructive dams in Turkey. Real estate for 13 different hydroelectric projects in 12 provinces can now be seized [...]
Located in the southern province of Mersin, on the Mediterranean Sea, the Akkuyu nuclear plant has been controversial since it was first proposed in the 1970s. The meltdown at the Japanese Fukushima nuclear plant last year didn’t stall Turkey’s plans to build its own nuclear reactors. Like many Middle Eastern countries, as Green Prophet reported, [...]
In Kuşköy, which literally means “Bird Village” in Turkish, the villagers have been able to communicate across long distances well before the invention of cellphones. Laid out along a deep, lush valley in Turkey’s Pontic Mountains, Kuşköy isn’t an easy village to traverse quickly. So some time ago — 400 years, according to some local estimates — [...]
To continue feeding its addiction to Iranian oil, Turkey exported eight times as much gold to Iran in the first five months of 2012 versus 2011. In March, the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Iran in response to its uranium enrichment program. Later that month, Iran was cut off from [...]
Lake Nar is in central Turkey, which was the epicenter of a disease that ravaged the Byzantine population 15 centuries ago. Climate change may have been a factor. The Justinian Plague swept through the Eastern Mediterranean from 541 BCE to 750 BCE, killing approximately one quarter of the region’s inhabitants. Samples of sediment from the [...]
Istanbul’s top ten secondhand clothing shops are easily accessible from the city’s main pedestrian drag, Istiklal Avenue, highlighted in blue on the map. Until recently, Istanbul’s secondhand clothing culture had been minimal, confined to costume shops, small racks in antique stores, and “eskicis” — old men wheeling carts of used items around the streets of [...]
Libya is one of the countries with which Turkey signed a rapid oil supply deal after the United States threatened to sanction countries that purchased oil from Iran. In March, U.S. President Barack Obama approved sanctions on buyers of Iranian crude oil, effective starting in July. The announcement threw many of Iran’s international customers into [...]
The district of Sulukule has been home to Istanbul’s Roma community since Byzantine times, but many of its residents were displaced to make way for a development project that started three years ago. Sulukule was declared a target area for “urban transformation” by the Turkish cabinet in 2006. Six years, four lawsuits, and many evictions [...]