Earlier:
Turkey building massive aerotropolis – 3rd airport for Istanbul – to cover 7.6 km sq including farmland and forest
Turkey is in the process of building a vast 7,650 hectare (ie. 7.65 km sq) aerotropolis airport development, with 6 runways. It forms part of a massive scheme for a road bridge over the Bosphorus, another canal, huge marinas etc covering a vast area. There has been strenuous opposition to this for years, but Turkey wants a new airport and to be a major aviation hub – situated where it is close to the Middle East. Much of the land being dug up and flattened was farmland, and some was forest. This is now all destroyed. The campaign, Northern Forest Defence (KUZEY ORMANLARI SAVUNMASI), has produced film showing the scale of the devastation. They sent a message of solidarity on 1st October, to other protests agains other unwelcome and environmentally destructive airport developments, including the airport project at Nantes. Work on it started in June 2014, and by August about 30% of work on the first phase was complete. If the first phase is completed in February 2018, it is expected the airport will then process 90 million passengers annually, and up to over 150 million passengers a year when fully operational in 2030. The group says people in the area wait to be told their land will be bought up for the project. The first wave of mandatory government purchases was in 2014. If land is designated as farmland, Turkish law allows its expropriation to use for public projects.
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Turkey’s bid to build Europe’s largest airport sparks fear and fury
Local residents say they will be pushed out and their livelihoods destroyed by the mega-airport
Image of roughly the boundaries of the new airport aerotropolis, when completed
Image shows approximate area as it is now, but where the aerotropolis airport will be
Nilgun Yildiz, a farmer in her late 40s, has never sunbathed on the beach. She has not learnt how to swim or even waded into the waters of the Black Sea just 10 kilometres from her house, but she is grateful for the swathes of pristine beach and sea on the fringes of northwest Istanbul.
For years, the long stretch of beach in the Karaburun neighbourhood has indirectly been providing her farming business with a major boost. Every weekend during the long Istanbul summer, thousands of people from the city flock here for a break from the city concrete and urban congestion.
On the way back, many stop by Yildiz’s stall, which she erects on the roadside to sell free-range chickens, eggs, cheese, vegetables and pickles. The family’s most popular product though is yoghurt made from buffalo milk, a local delicacy they have been perfecting for decades.
“We sell a lot to wholesalers. But it is this custom from holidaymakers that allows us to make a small profit. They are vital for our survival,” says Yildiz.
All of this, however, looks set to change. The fields where the buffalo roam and graze, as well as the beaches that pull in the weekend revellers, are soon to be overshadowed by the construction of what is set to be Europe’s largest airport, a mere five kilometres away.
Turkey in 2023 – world’s 10th biggest economy
The government has pitched the project as a keystone of economic progress and as a crucial part of Turkey’s goals to become the world’s 10th biggest economy by 2023, the centennial of the founding of the republic.
By the time the first phase is completed in February 2018, it is expected the airport will process 90 million passengers annually, growing to more than 150 million passengers a year by the time it is fully operational in 2030.
For now, the airport has no official name and is simply referred to as the third airport, but that does not mean authorities do not have big plans for it. Since work began in June 2014, construction has carried on unimpeded despite a string of deadly attacks and the failed coup to overthrow the government last month.
At the moment, 17,500 workers are working at the site in shifts to make sure deadlines are met.
The public is not allowed to come close to the site, but the size and scope of the project is clear for kilometres around and a large dust cloud hovers above the whole area.
The CEO of Istanbul Grand Airport (IGA), the firm leading the construction, announced last week that 30% of work on the first phase was complete. He said 2bn euros had been spent so far and there are plans to eventually hire 30,000 construction workers.
But for all the promised growth and prosperity, local residents have been up in arms fearing that the transportation hub will totally destroy their idyllic oasis just kilometres from the bustling streets of the Turkish metropolis.
‘A slow drawn-out execution’
Yildiz says she simply cannot imagine being able to live like this anywhere else in or around Istanbul. There is simply not enough space or good employment opportunities for her parents, her children and grandchildren to all be able to get along.
“It is like a slow drawn-out execution. We know they will eventually come for our land. We know we won’t be able to continue with our lives in the same way. We can just hope and pray,” Yildiz says.
Yildiz’s husband, Murat, is also resigned to eventually having to give up his house and 3,000 square metres of farmland.
Murat expected the government to come for his land in the first wave of mandatory government purchases made in 2014, but his area was given a temporary reprieve.
“Do you think the developers are going to leave us in peace once the construction boom begins and the wealthy turn their eyes on us?” he asks. “We will resist until the very last moment, but I know it is something we can’t win in the end. Either the government or wealthy individuals will run us out of here eventually.”
Currently building permits are not being granted in the area as most of it is designated as farmland, yet this designation carries its own risk. Turkish law allows the government to expropriate farmland to use for public projects.
Previous experiences show that once such major projects come online, existing laws are gradually amended and regulations changed, allowing for an urban construction boom in the vicinity of the project.
The Yildiz family, like so many others nearby, says they fear they are destined to be the victims, not the beneficiaries of development.
“We are farmers. We have been doing this here for 18 years. Before we think of our children’s futures we have to think of their current situation. They will bankrupt us and make all of us starve while promising better futures for our children,” says Murat.
Environmental backlash
Environmentalists have also widely slammed the airport for taking away some of the last woodland near Istanbul and putting great pressure on the city’s water resources.
A pro-environmental group calling itself Istanbul’s Northern Forests Defence has warned against airport construction, saying it will damage the area’s ecosystem and have profound knock-on effects on animals, birds and bio-life throughout Istanbul.
Istanbul’s northern fringes are the only remaining forested areas that had been relatively untouched by urban expansion.
Now the airport construction and the building of the Northern Marmara Motorway, which cuts through these forests and connects Thrace with Anatolia via Istanbul’s third bridge, is set to undermine all of that. It is set to open on 26 August.
The environmental group says the airport construction will do irreparable harm to the water basins, farmland and unique ecosystem in the vicinity, and has criticised the positive environmental impact report issued by a state agency.
The government says environmental damage will be kept to a minimum and that such projects are necessary to help the country progress, vowing to replant many trees in other areas for every tree that is uprooted, but campaigners say that authorities have time and again put profits and expansion ahead of the environment.
Opposition takes root
Until a few years ago, as Turkey was becoming a top tourist destination and performing well economically, there was little doubt that a third airport was needed in Istanbul where the city’s two existing airports were struggling to cope with expanding passenger numbers.
Does Turkey need a third airport?
But as instability took hold in Turkey with an increase in militant attacks in urban centres – including one on Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport in June – Turkish society has grown more polarised about the need for such a large project and there are worries that with increasing instability and a more authoritarian head of state, foreign visitor numbers are set to dwindle rapidly.
This has led to even more questions about the viability of the economic benefit-environmental cost equation.
None of this is on Mahmut’s mind though as he moodily looks out at the sea in Karaburun.
Mahmut works at a fish restaurant on the beachfront and moved to Karaburun seven years ago from Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey. He is certain the new airport will put an end to this chapter in his life.
“People come here for the clean air and to enjoy nature. Why would they come once this area becomes crowded,” says Mahmut who did not want to give his last name. “Even if the beach is left untouched, the airport will make the area too crowded and noisy for people looking for a break.”
Disheartened as he is about his immediate future, Mahmut says he will keep trying to look for the positives.
“Until seven years ago I had never seen the sea. Maybe I will experience something new again if the time comes to move on,” he says.
Others, however, are vowing to stay firm and say they will not be moved once the airport and its millions of passengers move in.
“I will resist until the last possible moment,” Murat says. “But we know we can’t win. There will be no place for us here in a few years. I don’t know what will happen after that.
“My wife’s grandparents migrated here from the Balkans and I came here from Malatya. Now we will be forced to migrate again.”
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There is more news, in English, at the Northern Forest Defence website at
http://www.kuzeyormanlari.org/category/english/
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Solidarity message from NFD to defenders of life all around the world
There is a lot of information about the airport development, and the reasons why the opponents are so strongly against it at
http://www.kuzeyormanlari.org/2015/06/14/the-third-airport-project-vis-a-vis-life-nature-environment-people-and-law/
See earlier:
Istanbul with its massive 3rd airport expected to soon take hub business away from Heathrow
The massive new 3rd airport for Istanbul – Istanbul Grand Airport (IGA) – big enough to take 150 million passengers per year in due course, is due to open on October 29th 2017. With 3 runways built in the first phase, it will have six runways and four terminals when completed. It would mean Istanbul having an airport larger than any in Europe. It will replace Atatürk Airport and provide the capacity that Turkish Airlines wants for huge expansion. Turkey is not doing well in cutting its carbon emissions overall, with more coal power stations planned and inadequate targets. A total of 25 new airports have opened in Turkey in the last 10 years. It is thought that by 2028, the new Istanbul airport may have enough capacity to shift passengers away from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, Heathrow, Schiphol, and Dubai. Even with the existing airports, Istanbul has been taking share from competitors for transfer traffic between Europe and Asia. Istanbul is one of the top-five largest feeders for Europe. It is likely that even if a 3rd runway was built at Heathrow, Istanbul would overtake Heathrow. It is better located to be a major hub airport, and would take its business. That is expected to start even before 2020. The President of Turkish Airlines says: “The world used to be focused on Northern Europe and America. In this century, it’s our turn.”
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Forests and lakes destroyed to build Istanbul’s vast 3rd airport aerotropolis covering 76 square kilometers of land
Istanbul is building a third airport, north of the city close to the Terkos lake area. Istanbul already has Atatürk Airport on the European side and Sabiha Gökçen airport on the Asian side (these handle around 45 million and 15 million passengers respectively per year), but both claim to be struggling with increased demand – being well located as a hub between Europe, the Middle East and the East. Their national airline, Turkish Airlines, is growing fast. The site for the 3rd airport, which is to be an Aerotropolis, not merely an airport, is about 76 square kilometres. The third airport is linked with other forest destroying megaprojects – a third bridge over the Bosphorus, a motorway and a canal linking the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. All three are linked and feed into each other. The vast construction works destroy areas of forest, lakes and ponds – causing serious local concern about biodiversity loss, loss of natural habitat and possible future heat island and water supply problems. Turkey wants another vast airport, perhaps able to take up to 150 million passengers per year, partly to boost its chances of getting the Olympics in 2024. The busiest airport in the world now, Atlanta, handles about 95 million passengers per year. A short video shows the ongoing environmental destruction, during the building of the airport. https://vimeo.com/123657571
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Turkey plans to build a 6-runway mega airport near Istanbul to be one of the world’s largest
Turkey is planning to build one of the world’s biggest airports, and one larger than anything in Europe, costing some $5bn. It wants to make Istanbul a global hub and boost its chances of getting the Olympics in 2020. Turkey is well situated geographically for traffic between the USA and Europe, and the Far East. It is therefore in competition with other Middle East and Gulf countries, which are also building mega-sized airports, such as Dubai and Doha (capital of Qatar). A tender will be held in may for the Turkish airport. This would be the third airport for Istanbul, which already has Ataturk airport, and Sabiha airport – which handle around 45 million and 15 million passengers respectively per year. The new airport will be near the Black Sea, and is anticipated to be able to cope with 150 million passengers per year. By contrast, Heathrow deals with some 69 million, and Atlanta – the world’s busiest airport – handles some 90 million per year. The plans are for the new 6 runway airport to be open by 2017.