Hydroelectric Dam Plan Meets Resistance in Turkey

The government plan envisions building 1,000 dams in the country's northeast. Photo retrieved from: www.setimes.com

“In late October, a natural and cultural protection board barred a government-backed plan to construct 22 hydroelectric dams in the valley by declaring it a “protected zone”.

For ecologists and local associations who had been fighting the projects, it appeared to be a decisive victory.

But just days later, the government released an updated version of a draft environmental law which, if approved, some ecologists fear could expose to development at least 80 percent of Turkey’s key biodiversity sites — including Ikizdere.

Among other things, the new law would revoke the status of more than 1,000 “natural heritage sites”, abolish the authority of local boards such as the one which has protected Ikizdere, and place the future of all these sites under the auspices of a new central board dominated by bureaucrats, who ecologists fear will dance to the government’s tune.

“This act has the potential to cause huge and irreversible harm to nature,” Engin Yilmaz, director of Turkish NGO the Nature Association, told SETimes.”

Read more: SETimes