Akbelen Forest resistance grows as MPs join protests

Background

The first thermal power plant in Muğla was established in 1982 in Yatağan, which was followed by the Yeniköy and Kemerköy power in 1986 and 1993, respectively. At the time, these plants did not go through any Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, due to the lack of such regulations.

In 1997, a court ordered all three plants to be shut down, and the Council of State, the country's top administrative court, upheld this verdict. However, the plants have continued to operate since then, despite a 2005 ECtHR verdict concluding that Turkey had failed to implement the court ruling concerning the issue.

During a 2014 privatization process, the three plants were acquired by a joint venture between Limak Holding and IC İçtaş Holding, known for winning numerous public tenders over the past decade.

The privatized power plants were allocated 21,000 hectares of land in Yatağan and 23,000 hectares in Milas as lignite mines to supply coal for the plants. Forty-seven percent of this land consisted of forested areas.

Sixty villages and neighborhoods are within the areas licensed for coal mining operations and some of those include olive groves. Only 37 of them are inhabited now, as the others have been evacuated due to mining operations.

According to Article 20 of Law No. 3573 on the Improvement of Olive Groves and Grafting of Wild Olives, first issued in 1939, it is forbidden to establish any facility that emits chemical waste, dust, or smoke within three kilometers of olive groves, except for olive oil factories.

When the plants in agricultural production around the Yatağan Power Plant were analyzed, it was found that the amounts of zinc, lead, cadmium, and copper heavy metals in carrot and sesame samples were above the permitted values for vegetables.

The Yatağan Power Plant consumes 7.5 times the total urban water consumption of the Yatağan district, with a population of 45,000, and Yeniköy Power Plant consumes 2.5 times the annual urban water consumption of the Milas district, with a population of 132,000. Who cares?

According to the Health and Environment Alliance's 2022 report, the three thermal power plants in Muğla caused more than 68,000 premature deaths, more than 43,000 premature births, and more than 455,000 cases of bronchitis in children from their first commissioning until 2020. And this...

The coal mine of the thermal power plant, which intends to continue its operations until 2043, has reached the border of the Akbelen forest. Işıkdere, one of the three neighborhoods in the İkizköy area, was evacuated in 2018 for the coal mine of the thermal power plant. This time, the villagers who moved from Işıkdere to Karadam Neighborhood sent a notice to vacate this neighborhood.

İkizköy people decided not to leave their villages after the expropriation notifications they received in 2019. While the legal process of Akbelen Forest, which was included in the mining area, continued, the Forestry Regional Directorate teams were prevented by the villagers from cutting the forest on April 22-23, 2021. As of July 17, 2021, they started a vigil in the tents they set up in Akbelen Forest, which they have continued until today.

Source: Polen Ecology Collective