On 20 August 2016, the Turkish parliament passed Law No. 6745 which is a “bag law” covering many issues related to investments. Article 80 of the law has raised serious concern among the public and is specifically protested by many environmentalists. This article will potentially lead to exemptions from licences, permissions and appropriations to projects deemed as strategic investments. Environmental NGOs are concerned that Article 80 will ease up the process of Environmental Impact Assessment.
This new Article aims to speed up the assessment processes that large scale and strategic investments go through, limits the parliament’s responsibilities and lets the cabinet take over the parliament’s responsibilities and power over the approval process. Furthermore, the article authorizes the cabinet to eliminate assesment processes when necessary.
The article includes incentives that cover reduction or even elimination of payment of income tax, and customs tax, also reduction or elimination of interests for investment credits and grants for staff wages.
All of the above mentioned issues in the newly introduced Article 80 in Act No. 6745 raise concerns about the negative impact of new investments to the environmental assessment processes and elimination of necessary authorizations with the consent of the cabinet.
Env.net Team in TEMA Foundation closely observes and monitors the updates regarding this new law with concerns.
On 19 September 2016, Turkey’s largest environmental trial, which has 751 real and legal entities including TEMA Foundation as complainants and 61 lawyers representing them, was held in Rize Administrative Court.
To give a brief introduction about the lawsuit: the struggle in Artvin started in early 90s when gold was first discovered in the area. Due to the geographical uniqueness of the area and the reported effects of any type of mining in the area, the local people protested against gold mining activities, and they supported their struggle with scientific evidence revealing the drastic destruction of any kind of mining activity would have on the area. Artvin Cerattepe is located in a National Park, which is a registered national natural protection area; the area is also internationally protected in framework of Rio, CITES and Bern Agreements. Artvin is home to protected fauna and flora types with 1400 plant species including 125 endemic and 77 rare plants species.
The trial on 19th September was on the annulment of the positive EIA report and the complainants’ lawyers ordered a stay of execution. During the trial the lawyers of the complainants presented numerous arguments on the irreversible destruction that the planned mining activities would cause, provided scientific evidence for these arguments. The trial ended unresolved because the complainants’ lawyers challenged the impartiality of the panel of judges. The decision for this challenge is still pending.
Green Wave, the radio show produced by the Env.net Team in TEMA Foundation is sponsored by Env.net for the coming two months. September 15th was the 17th broadcast of the series.
This week on Green Wave we talked about WWF Turkey’s newly implemented Kaş-Kekova Sustainable Tourism Project. Our guest, Yaprak Arda, WWF Turkey Nature Protection Specialist, also talked about WWF Turkey’s sub grant on the subject; we also talked to one of the sub grantees Munise Ozan, Head of Kaş Tourism and Publicity Foundation, which implemented a project about nature friendly tourism.
For more information on the project, check out WWF-Turkey’s website (Turkish).
To listen to this week’s broadcast, click on the link.
Green Wave, the radio show produced by the Env.net Team in TEMA Foundation is sponsored by Env.net for the coming two months. September 22nd was the 18th broadcast of the series.
This week on Green Wave we talked about the “Adım Adım Initiative” and TEMA’s own “Fellowship of the Trees” Project. Adım Adım is a volunteer-based social initiative in Turkey that promotes charitable giving through sponsorship for sports like running, cycling, swimming and trekking. Formed in 2007 Adım Adım is Turkey’s first charity running group and as of 2011 it was the largest amateur running group in the country.[1] Emel gave a brief introduction on the Adım Adım Initiative and explained the logic behind it.
On November 13th, TEMA as a part of the Adım Adım Initiative will run the Eurasia Marathon to raise funds for the Fellowship of the Trees project, which is a ecological education programme initiated by TEMA’s Education Department.
For more information on Adım Adım, please visit their website (Turkish).
For more information on the Fellowship of the Trees Project click on the link (Turkish).
This week our broadcast was about the newly formed sinkhole in Konya Karapınar and our guests were Assoc. Prof. Fetullah Arık from the Chamber of Geology Engineers’ and Assoc. Prof. Erhan Akça from TEMA’s Science Committee. Prof. Arık stated that although sinkholes are naturally occurring phenomena, the formation of sinkholes in residence areas is potentially dangerous for human life as well as agricultural activities. Prof. Arık also explained the reasons for sinkholes’ formation: over irrigation of agricultural areas causes decrease in groundwater levels. Prof. Akça, who joined the broadcast later, explained how changing the chosen crop patterns could decrease or even prevent formation of new sinkholes and limit the decrease of groundwater levels. By choosing hydrophobic plants to grow in this area, groundwater levels can be maintained, while preventing formation of sinkholes.
On September 7th Env.Net Team Turkey organized a seminar on coal investments in Turkey and related human rights infringements for TEMA’s employees. The presented study was conducted by the Earth Association, which works on issues like climate change, ecological production and eco-villages on a voluntary basis and is formed by academicians and ecological activists. For further information please check out their website from the link.
The results of the ethnography which was pursued in 2015 were presented during the seminar and they indicated that coal investments violate most of the human rights that are protected by international law and the UN Charter (UDHR). Dr. Akif Pamuk, who is the coordinator of this study, explained how local people show signs of learned helplessness and tried to explain their lack of resistance to coal investments in frames of this phenomenon. In this sense, he emphasized that approaches that are designed for local people’s needs are required to encourage resistance and build capacity for understanding the impact of coal investments to issues of health, human rights, climate change and others.
To mark the successful completion of the project “Think Globally – Act Locally”, funded through the call Active Citizens for Greener Future (Macedonia) and under the sub-granting scheme for 2016 of the project “Development of the ENV.net in West Balkans and Turkey: giving citizens a voice to influence the environmental process reforms for closer EU integration”, supported by the European Commission, Vila Zora in cooperation with the ENV.net team from Macedonia organised a promotional event to award the most successful applications from the call for creative works (poems and paintings) on environment, opened between May and June, 2016, to all primary and secondary students from Veles.
For better visibility, a radio spot was featured on the local stations throughout the whole period of the call (and the action realisation).
More than 20 paintings and around 10 poems were submitted by students from both primary and secondary students from Veles. The event was also used to once again stress the message of the project (Think globally – Act locally) and to raise awareness on the key challenges: environmental pollution and weather (climate) change, the effects of which are becoming more and more visible.
Green Wave, the radio show produced by the Env.net Team in TEMA Foundation is now sponsored by Env.net for the coming two months. September 1st was the 15th broadcast of the series.
This week on Green Wave we talked about Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, which is going to spend over a week in Turkey’s coasts in September. Our guest was Duygu Kutluay, Greenpeace Mediterranean Climate and Energy Campaign Head. Ms. Kutluay talked about Turkey’s solar energy potential and how this potential can be utilized. She has also emphasized that Greenpeace Mediterranean is currently campaigning for 1 million solar roofs in Turkey and invited individuals to take part in this significant change in energy. As she talked about solar power she has underlined that fossil fuels especially coal power plants won’t solve Turkey’s foreign dependency problem, on the contrary it would cause more issues in regards to energy efficiency and energy production.
To listen to this week’s broadcast (in Turkish) please use the link.
To check out Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior and the campaign “Let’s Sail for Sun” use the link (in Turkish)
Green Wave, the radio show produced by the Env.net Team in TEMA Foundation is now sponsored by Env.net for the coming three months. August, 25th was the 14th broadcast of the series.
This week on Green Wave we talked about the ongoing Biodiversity Inventory Study in the Prince Islands of Istanbul. Our guests were Esra Ergin, from TEMA’s Education Department and journalist Yücel Sönmez who works actively with the “Islands’ Defense. Mr. Sönmez himself is from the Prince’s Islands and works voluntarily for the Islands’ Defense. While explaining their objective for this project he has suggested that the primary reason for this inventory study is to raise awareness about the fragility of the ecosystem and biodiversity in the Prince’s Islands. Furthermore he emphasized the importance of the Islands’ inhabitants to cooperate with the experts to complete this study. In this sense the local people of the Prince’s Islands will also be able to take part in this study on a voluntary basis.
To listen to this week’s broadcast (in Turkish) please use the link
Green Wave, the radio show produced by the Env.net Team in TEMA Foundation is now sponsored by Env.net for the coming three months. August, 18th was the 13th broadcast of the series.
This week on Green Wave we talked about Coal Investments and Human Rights Infridgements in Turkey. Akif Pamuk, the coordinator of this project from Yeryüzü (Earth) Association has shared the findings of the project, which really struck us. By adopting ethnography as the method of research, they have identified 6 different categories of human rights’ infridgments including right tolive, work and healthy environment. In the next phase of the project, Dr. Pamuk and Yeryüzü Association plan to invite different . stakeholders for a roundtable and plan the next steps for this project. Project details (in Turkish) can be downloaded through this link.
To listen to this week’s broadcast (in Turkish) please use the link.
