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Turkey’s Conservation Crisis: Global Biodiversity Hotspots Under Threat

Posted by Çağan Şekercioğlu of University of Utah & KuzeyDoğa Society on December 31, 2011(6)

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Dr. Çağan Şekercioğlu is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. A professor of conservation biology, ecology and ornithology at the University of Utah Department

of Biology, he also directs the Turkish environmental organization KuzeyDoğa.

For me, 2011 started with a great post by David Braun, so I will thank him by ending the year with my first National Geographic piece, about my country Turkey (Türkiye). Turkey is

the only country covered almost entirely by three of the world’s 34 global biodiversity hotspots: the Caucasus, Irano-Anatolian,and the Mediterranean. At the nexus of Europe, the

Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, Turkey’s location, mountains, and its encirclement by three seas have resulted in spectacular biodiversity, making Turkey “the biodiversity

superpower of Europe“. Of over 9000 known native vascular plant species, one third are endemic. Large carnivores such as brown bear, wolf, Caucasian lynx, caracal, striped

hyena, and possibly even leopard, still roam the wild corners of this diverse country that covers 783,562 km2 and hosts 75 million people.

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1/22/13 Turkey’s Conservation Crisis: Global Biodiversity Hotspots Under Threat – News Watch

newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/31/turkeys-globally-important-biodiversity-in-crisis/ 6/11

Map of Turkey showing some of the key biodiversity areas

Turkey’s Globally Important Biodiversity In Danger

Two papers I published with my colleagues this month highlight Turkey’s growing conservation crisis, the worst in the country’s long and fascinating history. “Turkey’s globallyimportant biodiversity in crisis“, our detailed review of Turkey’s biodiversity, habitats, and conservation issues was published in the December 2011 issue of the journal Biological

Conservation. This comprehensive and up-to-date overview of Turkey’s natural wealth and environmental problems, elaborated below, has been engagingly summarized by the New

York Times, and the Treehugger.

“Turkey’s rich natural heritage under assault“, published in Science last week, highlights the scale and extent of these threats,

in particular all the environmental laws that were changed in the past two years to make it easier to replace Turkey’s crucial habitats and protected areas with mines, dams, tourist

resorts, and other types of “development”. As Jennifer Hattam states, this “arbitrary, development-obsessed environmental policy-making is greatly threatening Turkey’s ecosystems“.

Consequently, Turkey’s astonishing amount of biodiversity, especially for a temperate country of its size, is being destroyed rapidly, partially in the past decade duringwhich “Turkey’s Great Leap Forward” has put the country at the risk of “cultural and environmental bankruptcy”. In addition, Turkey lacks the biological ‘‘charisma’’ of many

tropical countries and suffers from the international misconception that, as a nation that wants to enter the European Union, it must have adequate funds and priorities to support

conservation. These factors, combined with the Turkish public’s general disinterest in conservation and the government’s unrelenting ‘‘developmentalist obsession’’, have created aconservation crisis which began in the 1950s and has peaked in the past decade. With Turkey’s biodiversity facing severe and growing threats, especially from the government and

business interests, the country is now entirely covered by crisis ecoregions, most of them critically endangered.

Undammed Çoruh River, Artvin

Turkey currently ranks 140th out of 163 countries in biodiversity and habitat conservation. Although Turkey’s total forest area increased by 5.9% since 1973, endemic-rich

Mediterranean maquis, grasslands, coastal areas, wetlands, rivers, and even some old-growth forests are disappearing, while overgrazing and rampant erosion degrade steppes and

rangelands. The current developmentalist obsession, particularly regarding water use, threatens to eliminate much of what remains, while forcing large-scale migration from rural areas

to the cities. According to current plans, Turkey’s rivers and streams will be dammed with almost 4000 dams, diversions, and hydroelectric powerplants for power, irrigation, anddrinking water by 2023.

A dam being built on Çoruh River, Artvin

Unchecked urbanization, dam construction, draining of wetlands, poaching, and excessive irrigation are the most widespread threats to biodiversity. Preserving Turkey’s remaining

biodiversity will necessitate immediate action, international attention, greater support for Turkey’s developing conservation capacity, and the expansion of a nascent Turkish

conservation ethic.

KuzeyDoğa: Conservation Action in Northeastern Turkey

Conservation biologists should not be content with only publishing scientific papers and expecting other people to do the boots-in-the-mud grassroots conservation. Conservation

biology is a crisis discipline and its practitioners need to practice what they preach. In 2003 I began my biodiversity research and conservation work in Kars, northeastern Turkey, awild, remote and impoverished corner of the country where the Caucasus and Irano-Anatolian biodiversity hotspots meet. As our conservation, biodiversity research, ecological

restoration, and village-based ecotourism projects grew, in 2007 I founded the nonprofit environmental organization KuzeyDoğa that works to promote biodiversity research and

1/22/13 Turkey’s Conservation Crisis: Global Biodiversity Hotspots Under Threat – News Watch

newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/31/turkeys-globally-important-biodiversity-in-crisis/ 7/11

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conservation in Turkey. In eastern Turkey, threats to wildlife are many, but grassroots conservation and wildlife research efforts are scarce. We work hard to fill this gap, conducting

community-based conservation, education, research, and ecotourism projects that cover the whole range of ecology and biodiversity, from ethnobotany to wetland restoration and

from bird lice to lynx. With the help of hundreds of dedicated volunteers from more than 20 countries, we monitor migratory and resident birds at eastern Turkey’s first bird banding

station, situated in the Aras River wetlands near breathtaking Mt. Ağrı (5137 m). We study bears, wolves, lynx, wild cat and other mammals of the Sarıkamış-Allahuekber NationalPark with camera traps, molecular fingerprinting and radio tracking. We created Turkey’s first vulture restaurant, built Turkey’s first bird nesting island and are working with the

Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs to create Turkey’s first wildlife corridor. Equally importantly, we work with local villagers and students, undertake environmental education,

promote village-based ecotourism, and regularly communicate the importance of biodiversity conservation to students, citizens, and decision-makers in the region and throughout

Turkey.

Video: Kars Lake Kuyucuk by Sir David Attenborough

You can learn more about our conservation work in eastern Turkey here and here. For a fascinating and funny account of our work that weaves Russian literature with northeastern

Turkey’s rich history, culture and biodiversity, I recommend you read the New Yorker article “Natural Histories” by Elif Batuman and listen to the related podcast.

Mt. Ağrı (5137 m) of eastern Turkey seen from Lake Kuyucuk of Kars, 137 km

away. © Çağan H. Şekercioğlu

Keywords: Aras, Cagan Sekercioglu, conservation, dams, emer, endangered, Explorers Journal, habitat loss, Kars, Kuyucuk, KuzeyDoga, Turkey, wildlife

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Comments

1. Happy 125th National Geographic: Brown Bears Film Their Lives with Turkey’s First CritterCams – News Watch

January 13, 11:55 pm

[...] 34 global biodiversity hotspots: the Caucasus, Irano-Anatolian,and the Mediterranean. However, Turkey’s globally important biodiversity is experiencing a major

conservation crisis. After studying this biodiversity for years, I founded the environmental organizations KuzeyDoga [...]

2. Paul Lindgreen

CanadaApril 26, 2012, 10:55 am

Great work Çağan. I’ld like to suggest my citizen science tools at Wildlife Sightings, http://www.junponline.com . Individuals and educators can contribute biodiversity data and

publish it to a wide audience. Educators and non-profit groups can even run their own citizen science projects with multiple managed users, its a great way to engage your local

community and raise awareness about the surrounding biodiversity.

3. » Turkey’s rich biodiversity at risk Free Bloggers Alliance

March 29, 2012, 10:18 pm

[...] consisting of mountains, wetlands, rivers, fields, meadows, and pine forests,” Sekercioglu wrote in an article for National [...]

4. billur

istanbul, turkey

January 2, 2012, 8:55 am

we’re proud of Cagan Sekercioglu for his extreme efforts, he stands against the devastating effects of turkey’s “development” on its own spectacular biodiversity…

5. ilhan

January 1, 2012, 7:25 pm

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