Civil society keeps up challenge to protect Hasankeyf

“We have gathered reputable scientists to prove that Hasankeyf should be included on the UNESCO World Heritage List,” said Güven Eken, who heads the Nature Society (Doğa Derneği). In order to be included on the World Heritage List, sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of 10 selection criteria. The Great Wall of China fulfills five criteria, while Egypt’s Memphis and its Necropolis -- the field of pyramids from Giza to Dahshur -- fulfill three and India’s Taj Mahal meets only one criterion.

The Nature Society’s efforts together with Atlas magazine led to the gathering of about 60,000 signatures from people in Turkey including celebrities such as superstar singers Tarkan and Sezen Aksu and writers Yaşar Kemak and Orhan Pamuk. Their signatures in support of protecting Hasankeyf will be sent to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who will have to decide whether the Culture and Tourism Ministry will make an application to UNESCO.

Representatives of the Nature Society, scientists and Tarkan met with Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay last April and introduced a report that explains in detail how Hasankeyf can be a candidate for the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Criticizing the government’s decisions to construct dams on sites that are protected by law, Eken said as those “illegal” projects start to be built, locals and the civil society would challenge them in court.

One promising decision was taken last week by the Council of State, which overturned previously given authority to the State Waterworks Authority (DSİ) in response to a court case filed by several civil society organizations.

“The Environment Ministry is guilty,” Eken said. “Even if the dam is completed, it will not be able to hold water according to the Council of State’s ruling.”

The decision also pleased the representatives of the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive. Recep Kavuş from the initiative said the Council of State’s ruling states that the DSİ cannot have authority over cultural values. The site was declared a natural conservation area in 1981.

Since 2007, the initiative has organized tree planting in the region every March. On March 22 this year, 200 people planted approximately 60 trees close to the Tigris River under the slogan: “By planting trees in Hasankeyf and the Tigris Valley we sow hope and life.”

The initiative has also been struggling because there are many financial supporters for Ilısu Dam. Although they have had several campaigns demanding responses from the three Turkish banks that support the construction of the dam, they have not received a response, Kavuş said.

Prime Minister Erdoğan said in February that the construction of the dam and a hydroelectric power plant on the site would continue. He also said the consortium that has undertaken the project had found necessary financing after a group of European credit agencies last July withdrew their financial support for the project, asserting that it did not meet environmental standards for preservation of cultural heritage, and relocation criteria for moving the villagers.

Three Turkish banks, Akbank, Garanti and Halkbank, will provide $430 to $500 million toward the estimated $1.7 billion cost of the dam.

Turkish officials say the 1,200 megawatt dam will help reduce the country’s reliance on energy imports and eventually bring in money from tourism and fishing. Ilısu Dam is part of Turkey’s Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP) -- an economic development program for the country’s poor southeastern corner. The $32 billion project will build more than 20 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants to boost irrigated agriculture in the arid region.

Construction started in August 2006, and the dam will swallow up more than 80 villages and hamlets by the time of its planned completion in 2013.

One other challenge to the construction of the dam has been going on since 2006 at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Attorney Murat Cano, who for 15 years fought in Turkey against the dam before going to the ECtHR, said the project was first considered in the 1950s and that its planning was completed in the 1970s.

“It was prepared with insufficient information considering the developments in environmental science since then,” said Cano, who added that a thorough evaluation of the construction site, technology and economic benefits of the dam is needed to be able to make a sound decision.

He points out that the government defends its decision to build the dam by saying it will protect and move some of the town’s 300 monuments to a new cultural park above the planned reservoir.

However, critics say the monuments are fragile and that many would crumble.

“Does the reservoir have to be in the middle of Hasankeyf?” Cano asked. “The government needs to make changes and adjustments to the project.”

Activists also urge Prime Minister Erdoğan, who has never visited the area, to pay a visit to Hasankeyf and see with his own eyes how this ancient site has been the cradle of civilizations for centuries.

“It is the region we all learned about in our history books: Mesopotamia,” Eken stated.

World Heritage List and Hasankeyf 

According to experts, Hasankeyf fulfills the World Heritage List criteria because it:

 Represents a masterpiece of human creative genius

 Exhibits an important interchange of human values over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design

 Bears a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared

 Is an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history

 Is an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land use or sea use which is representative of a culture (or cultures) or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change

 Contains superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance

 It has outstanding examples representing major stages of the earth’s history, including a record of life, significant ongoing geological processes in the development of landforms or significant geomorphic or physiographic features

 It has outstanding examples representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals

 Contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.