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Proposed changes to ​“The Olive Law” which has pro­tected Turkey’s olive trees since the 1930’s could result in thou­sands of trees being cut down and olive groves replaced by mines, indus­trial projects and hous­ing schemes deemed to be ​“pub­lic ben­e­fits” if a draft sub­mit­ted on 17^th May moves forward.

Haluk Yurtkuran, co-founder and pres­i­dent of Adatepe Olive Oil and an Olive Oil Museum in the Çanakkale province of Turkey told Olive Oil Times, ​“it is a draft law which will def­i­nitely kill ages-old olive trees on the Mediterranean and Aegean coast of Turkey by allow­ing min­ing, indus­trial and hous­ing projects on olive groves.” 

Under exist­ing law (Article 9 Law No. 3573) olive groves are expected to have no more than 15 trees per decare (1,000 square meters, or approx­i­mately 0.25 acres). If the new law gets the green light, any olive grove hous­ing less than 15 trees per decare will not be classed as an olive grove. 

Yurtkuran said, ​“This is the most crit­i­cal point of this draft because all the olive groves in the Mediterranean and North Aegean regions of Turkey have very old trees which were planted tra­di­tion­ally 10 meters x 10 meters accord­ing to old know-how. So in most of the olive groves, the num­ber of olive trees are nat­u­rally less than 15 per decare. 

Furthermore, until recent times, the land is divided among the inher­i­tors in very small pieces of land. Now, this rule has been changed but thou­sands of small farm­ers have very small scale groves. So with this new law, their groves will be under threat of not being counted as olive groves any­more and treated as ordi­nary fields.” 

Currently, olive grow­ing land is ​“pro­tected” from any indus­trial activ­ity other than olive oil pro­duc­tion. This encom­passes the grove and land within a three-kilo­me­ter radius. According to Yurtkuran, many small olive groves have been encroached upon by indus­trial, min­ing and hous­ing projects. Yurtkuran believes the new law would pose a threat to larger groves, where there was a ​“pub­lic Benefit” in let­ting indus­trial plants, mines, and other activ­i­ties move in. 

Adatepe lost its biggest olive grove to nation­al­iza­tion. Yurtkuran explained, ​“Our biggest piece was nation­al­ized a few years ago just because of a high­way con­struc­tion which would pass through our grove.” When the com­pany objected they were told there was a ​“pub­lic ben­e­fit” from the project. 

In the widest and most pub­lic demon­stra­tion of oppo­si­tion to date, the Turkish group ​“The Friends of Olives Association” (Zeytindostu Derneği) have launched a peti­tion called, ​“Don’t touch my olive tree.” Over 18,000 peo­ple have signed the peti­tion and the orga­niz­ers hope to col­lect one mil­lion sig­na­tures against the pro­posed draft. 

Prior to this cam­paign, local com­mu­ni­ties, the gen­eral pub­lic and asso­ci­a­tions includ­ing the National Olive and Olive Oil Council and The Friends of The Olive Association have voiced their oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed new law through sem­i­nars, protests and on social media platforms. 

The gov­ern­ment, now in its fourth term in office, first attempted to change the olive law in its sec­ond term. Fears have been expressed that the gov­ern­ment is stronger and more con­fi­dent in get­ting the draft passed fol­low­ing April’s approval of the pres­i­den­tial regime. 

Yurtkuran told Olive Oil Times, ​“If this law passes then all our and fel­low vil­lagers’ olive groves will be in dan­ger. Our com­pany may have dif­fi­culty obtain­ing local prod­uct due to dimin­ish­ing olive pro­duc­tion in the region and will be obliged to pur­chase olives from the big plan­ta­tions from dif­fer­ent regions of Turkey. 

This will affect our advan­tage of pro­duc­ing olive oil from the olives picked from our neigh­bor­hood which we believe has the best micro-cli­mate affect­ing the taste of the oil.” 

Under cur­rent Turkish law, any­one who unlaw­fully cuts down an olive tree faces a fine of 2,000 Turkish Lira ($560) per tree. The draft amend­ment aims to remove the three-month prison term for unau­tho­rized ani­mal graz­ing on olive land; offend­ers would instead be fined 5,000 TL (around $1,400).

Adatepe teamed up with other farm­ers, olive oil com­pa­nies and NGO’s to raise pub­lic aware­ness and save Turkey’s olive trees. The com­pany was active in pre­vent­ing gold mines mov­ing into their neigh­bor­hood. Visitors to Adatepe’s olive oil museum are reminded that ​“Olive is the real gold of this land” via posters on the walls. They are informed about the dan­gers posed by the draft law in explana­tory leaflets. 

The ​“Don’t touch my olive tree” peti­tion can be signed at Change.org.

• Hurriyet Daily News 


• Haluk Yurtkuran