Turkey: protest camp against coal mining
The planned expansion of the lignite mine on the Aegean coast is sparking protest in Turkey. Environmental activists have set up a resistance camp in the Akbelen forest in the town of Milasi in Muğla province. The situation escalated last week when the police used water canons and pepper spray to curb the protests, but the activists are staying put. The Turkish press is divided.
No lessons learned
How can coal mines like this get approval when we are so clearly seeing the effects of the climate crisis, T24 asks:
“Why can't they see that these decisions will lead to irreversible catastrophe? ... This quarter will be destroyed. The people will be robbed of their houses, their livestock, their harvests and their future. Akbelen is bleeding! We are all experiencing the climate crisis, global warming. Did the heat last week not show us that living indoors with air conditioning does not provide us with enough oxygen to breathe?”
A dirty game that has no respect for life
Cumhuriyet lists the catastrophic consequences of mining:
“As a result of these mining activities, the health of the local population has seriously deteriorated. According to a report by the Health and Environment Alliance, the cumulative health costs have been put at 1.48 trillion Turkish liras. So the bottom line is: although the lignite mining company YK Enerji tries to portray thermal power plants as charities, these are the facts: Nature is being ruined, our health is being damaged, our water, our trees and our future are being destroyed, but the insatiable companies continue to make profits with lies.”
Incorrigible activists
The pro-government paper Akşam thunders:
“In Turkey there is an incorrigible, incurable group of people. They are against everything. They are allergic to nuclear power stations. They can't stand hydroelectric power plants at all. They get goosebumps about dams. They love protesting in front of thermal power plants. ... This time they are attacking a mine and a thermal power plant, which will provide thousands of jobs and produce electricity that the country needs. ... But they will turn a blind eye to the villains who burn forests in cities if it happens in communities they are ideologically aligned with.”