A cooperation project between Turkish and French forest management agencies ended with experts and animators visiting an ecotourism route in Istanbul to highlight results of ten years of joint efforts.
Officials of the Turkish General Directorate of of forests (OGM), the Office national French of Forests (ONF) and its international arm ONFI, and project financial French Development Agency (AFD) met Wednesday in Büyükada, the most grand of Istanbul’s Princes’ Islands, where an ecotourism route has been launched in 2020 in frame of the project.
Speaking to the press at the picturesque island fire tower, Özgür Balcı, the head of the GMO’s Department of Ecosystem Services, said that forest management and forestry, previously seen as only concerned with stock of wood, have transformed in the past 30 years that forests are considered as valuable socio-cultural and economic resources.
The OGM created the Directorate of Ecosystem Services in 2011 and the French support helped the agency to develop services in biodiversity, ecosystems and ecotourism, Balcı said.
Balcı said 52 ecotourism routes have been launched so far in line with the experience earned in the project and the number of roads will reach 110 by 2025. These roads, which only leave footprints behind and serve as alternatives for mass tourism visitors, provide important sources of income and economic opportunities for forest villagers and other inhabitants, he added.
The road to Büyükada was the first application in Gasket project with AFD, Balcı said, adding that this experience later spread across Turkey with even better examples and using GMO’s own budget.
A road in the province of Adana, in the south of Turkey, provided the means for a rather remote town of 20,000 people to welcome 120,000 visitors, Balcı said, adding that OGM will pursue such projects which are beneficial for maintenance of rurality population and provide local employment opportunities.
“We estimate that the direct annual contribution of tourist activities in forest areas at the national economy is 250 millions of TL (16.97 millions of dollars). He is hard measure son economic contribution in terms of effects, but it’s predictable; we believe that these actions alone cause tourist mobility of 1 billion TL,” Balcı told Ihlas News Agency (IHA).
Since project has begun in 2012, AFD provided OGM and the Turkish Ministry of Cash and finance with 600 millions euros (663 millions of dollars) in public loans and 1.2 million euros in technical grants for Implementation of sustainable forest management policies and applications.
the total amount of project financing by AFD in Turkey since son launch in the country in 2004 reached 4 billion dollars, said the director of AFD Turkey, Tanguy Denieul, noting that the project with GMO was the most grand of AFD’s sustainable forest management projects in the world.
Denieul mentioned the various effects of the project from ecotourism to avalanche prevention, restoration of a abandoned reforestation mining and quarry sites of fire-hit Regions. the project also issues covered of biological control of harmful, fire prevention and monitoring, genealogy and forestry studies on climate change adaptation strategies.
” In the framework of of this strong cooperation which has brought mutual benefits for both countriesnearly 100 experts from both public and private sectors were mobilized between 2019 and 2022 and more over 30 exchange visits have taken place,” said Denieul.
ONFI’s Olivier van den Bossche said that Turkey and France share many similarities in terms of forests, including the country’s forests total regions covered with forests. “We will continue our efforts with actors and institutions in Turkey will manufacture the country’s forests more adaptive and resilient in the face of climate change,” he said.
Following the meeting, Turkish and French experts took the Büyükada road, which crosses the southern part of the covered island with pine forests. The route includes historic sites such as the Aya Yorgi (St. George) Monastery and Church and the Greek Orthodox Orphanage, along with a pheasant breeding station. Visitors can either take the 6 kilometer (3.7 mile) paved road, which is also known as route for the “Grand Tour” of the island for sightseeing or the 4.5 kilometer unpaved hike path.
During the class of Turkey’s forest cover increased from 27% to 30% between 2012 and 2019.
