New Regulation in Turkey Permits Olive Tree Removals for Coal Mining

A new reg­u­la­tion autho­rized in Turkey allows min­ing com­pa­nies to remove olive trees if doing so allows eas­ier access to under­ground coal deposits.

The country’s rul­ing Justice and Development Party (AKP) framed the move as a way to bol­ster Turkey’s energy secu­rity in light of the recent Russian inva­sion of Ukraine.

However, they added that any trees removed for min­ing pur­poses must be replanted else­where. The min­ing com­pa­nies would also be respon­si­ble for grow­ing olive trees in the area after com­plet­ing their activ­i­ties.

According to the European Association for Coal and Lignite, there are sub­stan­tial coal reserves in Turkey’s west­ern Aegean region and its south­ern coast­line with the Mediterranean Sea. These areas are home to the over­whelm­ing major­ity of the coun­try’s olive groves.

The AKP’s deci­sion has been met with great skep­ti­cism by oppo­si­tion par­ties, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and farm­ers. They argue the move will hurt the country’s olive oil sec­tor and exac­er­bate the impacts of cli­mate change, which are already being felt by local pro­duc­ers.

“With this reg­u­la­tion, the min­ing com­pa­nies will pil­lage the olive groves,” said Süleyman Bülbül, an oppo­si­tion law­maker. ​“This reg­u­la­tion will pave the way for pro-gov­ern­ment com­pa­nies to plun­der the groves.”

Mustafa Tan, the chair­man of the board of Turkey’s National Olive and Olive Oil Council (UZZK for its Turkish ini­tials), told Olive Oil Times that no trees have been removed yet under the reg­u­la­tion, but ​“we are wor­ried that it will begin soon.”

“There are roughly 500,000 fam­i­lies who are olive pro­duc­ers in Turkey, and around 10 mil­lion peo­ple ben­e­fit from the indus­try directly or indi­rectly,” he added. ​“A very mean­ing­ful amount of the 190 mil­lion olive trees will be neg­a­tively affected even­tu­ally by the min­ing oper­a­tions.”

However, Tan said the new reg­u­la­tion did not have the same power as a law would. He appeared opti­mistic that the reg­u­la­tion would be appealed in the courts and even­tu­ally over­turned.

“Almost all the stake­hold­ers of the olive indus­try, us [the UZZK], NGOs, munic­i­pal­i­ties and some polit­i­cal par­ties have already started the legal process to appeal the deci­sion,” he said.

“We expect that the courts will can­cel this reg­u­la­tion,” Tan added. ​“We also requested from the related min­istry to with­draw this wrong reg­u­la­tion.”

Bahar Alan, the owner of Nova Vera, told Olive Oil Times that her 160 hectares of olives in Ayvalik, the his­toric cap­i­tal of Turkish olive oil pro­duc­tion, and Manisa would not be affected. However, she is con­cerned about the impact of the reg­u­la­tion on the wider sec­tor.

Alan insisted that olive trees are a far more valu­able resource than coal. After all, the oil from their fruit has fueled the Turkish peo­ple and its econ­omy for thou­sands of years.

“It is a sec­tor that cre­ates an added value of approx­i­mately $1.5 bil­lion (€1.36 bil­lion) a year and has been in these lands for 8,000 years,” she told Olive Oil Times. ​“We believe the biggest and most sacred min­eral is the olive. It is the great­est wish of us, the pro­duc­ers, that this irre­versible wrong deci­sion will be revised before it’s too late.”

• Turkish Minute