‘Recognize Lake Salda as UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site’

* Photo: Archive - AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

Gazi Osman Şakar, the Chair of Lake Salda Preservation Association, has applied to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and requested that Lake Salda and its surrounding area be listed among UNESCO Natural World Heritage Sites.

Emphasizing the necessity to protect the lake in Turkey's Mediterranean Burdur province, the petition of the association chair has underlined the ecological and scientific importance of Lake Salda.

Referring to the works of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and scientists about the lake, Şakar has reminded UNESCO that the structure of Salda has similarities to Mars, noting that protists, marking the beginning of life on earth, are still forming in the region.

CLICK - NASA: Lake Salda similar to Jezero Crater on Mars

Home to 301 plant species

Salda Lake is formed by waters and surface waters from 2 million years ago. Permanent rivers such as Salda (Karakova) Brook, Doğanbaba Brook and Köpek Brook and seasonal rivers such as Karanlık Brook, Kuruçay and Kayadibi Brook flow into Lake Salda.

According to the information shared on the social media account of the association, the works of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in the region in 2013 showed that there were 301 aquatic and land plant species in the region and two of them were endemic species.

In Salda Lake Sub-basin, the existence of 100 bird species has been documented; while 62 of these bird species are singing birds, 38 of them are water birds, 9 are accipitriformes and one is strigiform. 75 of these species are protected by the Berne Convention.

Lake Salda to be turned into a 'Nation's Garden'

Lake Salda was declared a "specially protected environment area" by a Presidential decree in March 2019. The lake and its surrounding area is also a first-degree protected area.

It was decided to lodge a tender in July 2019 to construct a "Nation's Garden" in the region. The tender was postponed, it was held in autumn. Having bidden 21 million 770 thousand TRY to undertake the construction, Güngör Agriculture and Construction Inc. won the tender.

The plan with the scale 1/25,000 that would zone Lake Salda and its surrounding area to construction was approved by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization in September 2020.

According to the plan, while the sparse rural residence in some parts of the Salda Lake Special Environmental Preservation Site will be retained, the hotels and motels planned to be constructed have been moved to Doğanbaba and Kayadibi and the zoning for construction has begun.

About Lake Salda

Şanver İsmailoğlu, a geological engineer, gave the following information on Lake Salda in his article published on bianet on February 3:

With a depth of about 185 meters, Salda is the deepest lake in Turkey and the second deepest lake in the world. Lying on a 45-square-kilometer area, Salda is home for seadragons and 110 types of birds.

Because there is precipitation of MgCO3 (magnesite), there is no vegetation cover on the three sides of the lake. Because of its geological structure, it can shed light on the forming of the first living organisms and several scientific studies were conducted in the area. (TP/SD)