Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli drew attention to the importance of drought and said, “Our cause is the case of the steppe and the green. This steppe must be green. We will continue our projects to keep every drop of rain falling on our country. We made a serious plan with the State Hydraulic Works (DSI), we aim to increase the underground dams to 150 by 2023.”
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli participated in the program held at the General Directorate of Agricultural Enterprises as part of the 17 June World Day for Combating Desertification and Drought. Minister Pakdemirli presented plaques to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Torku, Coca-Cola Turkey and EKOFEN, which were successful in combating desertification in the program. Minister Pakdemirli stated that this year’s events were celebrated with the theme of ‘we will build the future better with fertile lands’ and said, “More than 70% of the lands and natural ecosystems in the world have been transformed. Land degradation, which is the main factor of this transformation, negatively affects the well-being of 3.2 billion people in the world. Today, desertification, drought and land degradation have become the biggest cause of migration after the wars. It is causing species extinction, increasing diseases and increasing the effects of climate change. Today, due to land degradation, about a quarter of the global land surface has lost productivity. With the effect of climate change, it is estimated that the yield in arid areas will decrease by 40% in 2050.”
‘AVERAGE TEMPERATURE INCREASED TO 14.9 DEGREES’
Minister Pakdemirli, regarding Turkey’s particular, said, “The Mediterranean Basin we are in is among the regions that will be most affected by the arid climate change. While the average temperature for many years in Turkey was 13.5 degrees, last year the temperature value rose to 14.9 degrees with a significant increase of 1.4 degrees. Unfortunately, the amount of precipitation decreases with each passing year. At the 3rd Agricultural-Forest Council held in 2019 under the auspices of our President, we discussed in detail the fight against desertification, drought, soil protection, water and forest. 14 articles of the 60-item Council Final Declaration directly or indirectly cover these issues. We accelerated our work within the framework of the action plan we prepared right after the meeting and further strengthened our struggle against this problem. Also, this year, we started the first Water Council in the history of the Republic, under the auspices of our President. In this period, where water makes its importance felt more and more every day, meetings continue in 11 working groups, where we will include the opinions and suggestions of all our stakeholders in order to shape the future of our water. Hopefully, we will quickly turn the recommendations in the Water Council Final Declaration into an Action Plan, as in the Agriculture-Forest Council, and put the decisions taken into practice one by one.”
‘OUR TARGET IS TO REACH 30% OF TURKEY’S AREA’
Minister Pakdemirli stated that one of the most important weapons in the fight against desertification and erosion is afforestation and said, “In the last 19 years, we have planted 5.3 billion saplings in an area of 5.4 million hectares. We rank 1st in Europe and 4th in the world in afforestation. We increased our forest assets by 2.1 million hectares to 22.9 million hectares. We raised our country, which was 46th in 2015 in the world forest wealth ranking, to 27th in 2020. Our target for 2023 is to increase our forest assets to 30% of the country’s surface area. With the approval of our Honorable President, 11 November was declared the National Afforestation Day. With the ‘Breath to the Future’ campaign, which we started in 2019 and which is the biggest social campaign in the history of the Republic, we brought our saplings to the soil together with all our people in 81 provinces. Last year, we spread this program to about 30 countries and set a new breath and example to the world.”
‘WE AIM TO REDUCE IT TO 130 MILLION TONS’
Minister Pakdemirli noted that while the amount of soil transported by erosion was 500 million tons annually in the 1970s, they decreased this amount more than 3.5 times to 140 million tons by the end of 2020, he added saying, “In the coming period, we aim to reduce the amount of soil lost by erosion to 130 million tons by the end of 2023, by carrying out soil conservation work on approximately 35 thousand hectares of land every year. I hope we will leave a green homeland, not deserted, barren lands, to future generations.”
‘OUR CASE IS STEPPE AND THE CASE OF GREEN’
Minister Pakdemdirli drew attention to the importance of drought and said:
“Drought is very important. During our struggle last year, the meteorological drought did not turn into an agricultural drought, unfortunately this year it has turned into an agricultural drought. We have taken many measures and we will continue to take them. We will continue our efforts in this regard. When there was no crop, the Anatolian villager opened both his own and his livestock until 30-40 years ago. Indeed, in the last 20 years, we have come a long way with the energy and light given by our President. Where are 275 dams in the last 18 years, we have added 600 more dams. Our case is the case of the steppe and the green. This steppe is supposed to be green. We will continue our projects to keep every drop of rain falling on our country’s soil. Underground dams were not on the agenda in Turkey. We have made a serious plan with DSI, we aim to increase the underground dam to 150 by 2023. In the future, I think we may be in a much better place in drier years. I would like to express my gratitude to our President, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has not spared his support and guidance in the work for our land, water, nature and environment in the last 19 years, both in the national and international arena.”
Source: Sabah / Translated by Irem Yildiz