{"id":34597,"date":"2011-05-30T19:40:13","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T16:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=34597"},"modified":"2013-10-13T19:51:28","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T16:51:28","slug":"turkeys-great-leap-forward-risks-cultural-and-environmental-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/05\/30\/turkeys-great-leap-forward-risks-cultural-and-environmental-bankruptcy\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey&#8217;s Great Leap Forward risks cultural and environmental bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article-header\">\n<div id=\"main-article-info\">\n<p id=\"stand-first\">Turkish government&#8217;s rush to build dams, hydro and nuclear power plants angers villagers and environmental campaigners<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul id=\"content-actions\">\n<li>\n<ul>\n<li> <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/profile\/fiachragibbons\">Fiachra Gibbons<\/span> and Lucas Moore in Ankara<\/li>\n<li> <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/\">guardian.co.uk<\/span>,\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t            Sunday 29 May 2011 18.56 BST<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2011\/may\/29\/turkey-nuclear-hydro-power-development#history-link-box\">Article history<\/span><\/li>\n<div id=\"article-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"main-content-picture\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2011\/5\/29\/1306687699394\/Tigris-River-and-ancient--007.jpg\" alt=\"Tigris River and ancient city of Hasankeyf, Batman Turkey. Image shot 2007. Exact date unknown.\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" \/><\/p>\n<div>Work was halted on a massive dam project  in Hasankeyf three years ago after the ancient city was flooded.  Campaigners fear the government will go ahead with the dam regardless.  Photograph: Alamy<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body-blocks\">\n<p>Every springtime Pervin \u00c7oban Savran takes her camels and sheep up into the Taurus mountains of southern <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/turkey\">Turkey<\/span>,  following the same routes along the Goksu river that Yoruk people like  her have taken for more than 1,000 years. To many Turks these last  nomadic tribes are symbols of the soul of their nation.<\/p>\n<p>Their way  of life \u2013 and that of millions of small farmers \u2013 is being threatened by  Turkey&#8217;s Great Leap Forward, one of the most dramatic and potentially  devastating rushes for economic development and prosperity <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/europe-news\">Europe<\/span> has seen in decades.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands  of dam and hydropower schemes are being built on almost all of the main  rivers in a pharaonic push to make Turkey a world economic power by the  centenary of the republic in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling AK party, expected  to win a record third term in next month&#8217;s elections, is forcing through  a series of gigantic public works projects that include three <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/environment\/nuclearpower\">nuclear power<\/span> plants \u2013 despite Turkey being one of the most seismically active nations on earth.<\/p>\n<p>The  first plant, a prototype Russian reactor on the Mediterranean coast  near the port of Mersin, is close to a highly active faultline. A  second, Japanese-built, plant will soon follow on the Black Sea near the  city of Sinop.<\/p>\n<p>Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised  eyebrows across the world last month by promising to cut a 40-mile canal  between the Black Sea and Marmara to relieve the dangerously  overcrowded Bosphorus strait, an idea even he calls his &#8220;crazy plan&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He  has since topped that by revealing a blueprint for two new cities to  relieve earthquake-prone Istanbul. Critics say they will only further  extend Europe&#8217;s largest megalopolis, home already to nearly 17 million  people.<\/p>\n<p>It is Erdogan&#8217;s declaration that Turkey&#8217;s rivers must no  longer &#8220;run in vain&#8221; and 100% of its hydroelectric potential be  harnessed over the next 12 years that has environmentalists most  worried. They claim that the rush for hydropower is likely to be even  more damaging to Turkey&#8217;s delicate ecological balance, where  desertification and depopulation are already problems.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of  private companies have been given extraordinary latitude to evict  villagers, expropriate private land, clear state forests and steamroller  normal planning restrictions to meet the target of 4,000 hydroelectric  schemes by 2023. Protestors claim licences have been granted on highly  favourable terms, guaranteeing investors four decades of clear profit.<\/p>\n<p>The  Turkish Water Assembly, an umbrella group researching the impact of the  push for more power, argued that 2 million people could be displaced by  the hydropower schemes alone. They accuse the government of riding  roughshod over human rights, and Turkey&#8217;s commitments to preserving its  extraordinary biodiversity and cultural heritage, in the name of <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/environment\/energy\">energy<\/span> security.<\/p>\n<p>Campaigners  fear Ankara is also determined to press ahead with the massive Ilisu  dam project on the Tigris river, which was halted three years ago after  an international outcry over the flooding of the ancient city of  Hasankeyf.<\/p>\n<p>The Ilisu dam is dwarfed by the $4bn Beyhan project on  the Euphrates, also in the Kurdish south-east, where fears of the forced  evacuation of the local population evokes bitter memories of the mass  clearances of Kurdish villagers by the Turkish army during the war with  the Kurdish separatist PKK in the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>Demonstrators intent on  converging on Ankara from five corners of the country are still being  prevented from reaching the capital after a week-long standoff with riot  police outside Ankara. Many, like the Yoruks, had been walking for two  months as a part of the Great March of Anatolia, a movement sparked by  anger at the hydro plans but which has come to embody growing anxiety  that the country is being despoiled in the rush for growth.<\/p>\n<p>While  the neo-liberal reforms of the moderately Islamist AK party have been  credited with firing the country&#8217;s runaway growth, the gulf between the  rich and poor has widened dramatically, and corruption has increased.<\/p>\n<p>The  Turkish government insists it must act radically to safeguard the  decade-long boom, with growth this year predicted to top 7% despite the  worldwide downturn.<\/p>\n<p>Energy, however, is the achilles heel of the  so-called Anatolian tiger, with industry heavily dependent on imported  gas from Russia and Iran. Despite making itself the hub of a network of  pipelines serving Europe from Russia, Central Asia and Iran, Turkey is  even more at the mercy of Moscow and Tehran \u2013 a fact  dramaticallydemonstrated four years ago when Iran turned off the tap and  sent fuel prices in Istanbul soaring overnight.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan has so  far been withering of critics of his Great Leap Forward, accusing them  of holding Turkey back. He argued that the hydro projects will bring  thousands of jobs to the underdeveloped east, irrigate barren land and  reverse the wave of migration to the more prosperous west.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All  investments can have negative outcomes,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But you can&#8217;t give up  just because there can be some negative outcomes. We cannot say that  there will be no earthquake, but we will take all the precautions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After  the Fukushima disaster in Japan, his energy minister Taner Yildiz  caused consternation by claiming that nuclear power was no more  dangerous than staying single, citing studies showing married people  tend to live four years longer. Alcohol and smoking posed more danger  than nuclear power, he claimed, prompting comparisons with former  president Kenan Evren&#8217;s claim after Chernobyl that &#8220;radiation is good  for the bones&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Tourism minister Ertugrul Gunay appeared to break  ranks, warning that &#8220;if the hydroelectric energy projects are carried  out in a reckless manner, cutting out each brook, levelling each  mountain and destroying forests just to be able to produce a few watts  of energy, tourism would be an impossible dream&#8221;, particularly in the  Black Sea region.<\/p>\n<p>His comments came as laws were being drafted to  allow nature reserves to be handed over for hydroelectric projects.  Still more worrying to campaigners has been the official reaction to the  legal morass the plans have created, with almost 100 lawsuits filed in  the last two years. Of the 41 cases so far heard, judges have halted 39.  Work has often continued in defiance of the courts with the protection  of police and gendarmerie.<\/p>\n<p>Each hydro scheme is allowed to take  90% of the water out of a section of river, leaving the remaining 10 %  as &#8220;lifeline support&#8221;. After the water travels through the turbines, it  is returned to the river, but farmers say much of the water is either  lost, polluted or has had the &#8220;life taken out of it&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>For Yoruks  such as Pervin \u00c7oban Savran it is their very survival that is in  question. &#8220;Nobody in parliament has shown any interest in our cause,&#8221;  she said. &#8220;They don&#8217;t love life, only money. These dams are bringing  about our end. Our culture is being destroyed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hydroelectric  projects on the tributaries of the Goksu river have already  severelydamaged traditional pastures, she said. &#8220;It has affected us very  quickly. But in the end, everyone else will suffer too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>&#8216;They want to turn us into slaves&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;They  killed me when they took my land,&#8221; said Sinan Ak\u00e7al, a tea grower from  the spectacular Senoz valley on the Black Sea. He has watched his local  court order the cancellation of the hydropower project his land was  expropriated for no less than three times. But each time the Turkish  environment ministry, which originally rubber-stamped the project  without an environmental impact assessment, overrides the court ruling \u2013  and work on the dam continues.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, large swaths of forest above the valley have been felled, triggering landslides and soil erosion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve  taken my land and they&#8217;ve offered me 15,000 lira [\u00a35,800]. I didn&#8217;t  take it, and I won&#8217;t take it,&#8221; said Ak\u00e7al, 54. &#8220;They just want us to go  to the cities and turn us into slaves. But what does 15,000 lira get you  in a city? In a year the money will run out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Where I come from,  people don&#8217;t have a lot of arable land, but we grow corn, potatoes, tea  and vegetables and we have everything we need. I don&#8217;t need huge amounts  more of electricity, it is not going to benefit us. My mother is 84,  and she can&#8217;t live anywhere else.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;The talking is going  nowhere. Again and again we went to court \u2013 again and again the courts  sided with us. But they didn&#8217;t stop, they just kept on working, cutting  trees, dirtying the water. In total we have counted 25,000 dead fish in  our stream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkish government&#8217;s rush to build dams, hydro and nuclear power plants angers villagers and environmental campaigners Fiachra Gibbons and Lucas Moore in Ankara guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 May 2011 18.56 BST Article history Work was halted on a massive dam project in Hasankeyf three years ago after the ancient city was flooded. Campaigners fear the government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":34598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2939],"tags":[176,2083,5605,5697,5696],"class_list":["post-34597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultureart","tag-energy","tag-energy-source","tag-hasankeyf","tag-taurus","tag-tigris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}