Friends from Turkey have asked us for help with a petition (only in Turkish) to save hundreds of hectares of olive orchards from being uprooted and replaced with nuclear plants. We have translated the petition so that you can sign it knowing what it is all about. Feel free to ask any questions!
A bill is attempting to limit the minimum size of olive tree orchards in Turkey to 25 decares (10 ares or 1000 square metres). Hence any land plot under this size would not legally be considered as farmland. This would in turn open the doors to non-agricultural use of the land.
Environmentalists have evidence that the purpose of this bill is to make rural land available for the the establishment of nuclear plants. Once the bill becomes law, much land will not legally be ‘apt’ for farming, and so there will be no alternative other than selling it to the best bidder.
This bill jeopardizes a large amount of olive tree orchards in Turkey, potentially affecting wider ecosystems and causing drastic damage to the landscape, not to mention the attack to the livelihoods of small farmers.
This petition is addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture, various MPs and government officials to defend the livelihoods of thousands of small farmers as well as the environmental rights of vast areas of coastal Turkey where hundreds of centenary trees have shaped the history and culture of the Aegean coast.
European Greens in London 