'No environmental impact assessment needed': Ministry approves 218 projects in 20 days

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The Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change issued reports that an environmental impact assessment (EIW) was not needed for 218 projects in the first 20 days of April, Mezopotamya Agency (MA) reported.

The projects in various parts of the country include housing estates, commercial centers, marble quarries, gravel quarries, stone crushing facilities and ready-mixed concrete production facilities.

Çağdaş Topal, the head of the İzmir branch of Tarım Orkam-Sen, a union of civil servants working in agriculture and forestry, told MA that the main purpose of making these decisions was to "make money" out of these areas.

"Our current policy aims to turn nature into money quickly," he said.

"In a period of an intense food crisis, we are losing agricultural lands. Even according to the TurkStat [Turkish Statistical Institute] data, we have lost 7 million hectares of agricultural land in the last 20 years," he noted, adding that the loss of agricultural land has already reached marginal limits. (TY/VK)