One of the most amazing things about Turkey is their ability to be pure and eco-friendly. A lot of different aspects from lifestyle choices of the locals and the geography goes into just what made friendly ecotourism possible in this country.
The Geography
First, there’s the geography and landscape of Turkey. If you come from a place like America, you’re used to seeing factories, smog and traffic jams which produces a lot of carbons that are bad for the atmosphere. When you come to Turkey, you’ll be surprised at how much of a great job they do at controlling the chemicals that go into the atmosphere.
There’s a couple of different reasons for this but one of them is the geography. The geography of Turkey has a lot of different ecofriendly aspects such as rich water sources and there’s a lot of geological substructures that have made a healthy and growing ecotourism in Turkey possible today. One of the key things here you’ll note that if you go on a hike is that Turkey has a lot of natural flowing rivers and valleys. There’s no controlled channels to help them flow, they’re purely natural passage.
The wildlife is also very abundant in this area as you’ll notice a lot of different bird species. There’s around 420 bird species in Turkey that are known about but there could be more. There’s a lot of diversity when it comes to the wildlife in Turkey which is great for boasting about the ecotourism in the country.
The West Vs Turkey in Terms of Ecotourism
When you examine the lifestyle and the overall structural integrity of the West, you’ll notice some very vast differences. When you come to Turkey, you’ll notice that a lot of the things here are not only organic but even the lifestyle of the people seems to be drastically different. Even the way that the local hotels and establishments in Turkey do business seems to vastly vary. There’s a popular building known as the Ataturk Cultural Center that is undergoing a renovation project to modernize it and make it more environment friendly.
The keyword you’ll hear a lot in Turkey is organic. It seems that everything has to be organic. There’s a hotel in Turkey that’s one of the first entirely organic hotels in Turkey named the Five Boutique Hotel. There’s two different popular and outdoor organic markets in Turkey. The first one is the Ekolojik Halk Pazari in Sisil, which was founded back in 2008. This market was started by the group Bugday and you can visit their website at bugday.org. Then, there’s a new grocery store called the Macrocenter. There are nine different locations for this store just in Istanbul.
With this growing trend, Istanbul has started adopting a lot of these all organic specialized stores that sell only organic products. There’s also a lot of stores selling whole foods only which help the environment and people’s general health. A lot of locally produced products can be found in these stores, all you have to do is look for the term bahcemden located on them which means ‘from my garden’.
However, in vehicle ridden areas of Turkey, a lot of them run on diesel fuel. There is a new wave of bus options in the city called the ekolojik which are considered the “new green city buses”.
The Black Sea has an abundance of rich sources in the water, which has provided a lot of interest to researchers and developers to develop more environmental friendly products and solutions. There’s a popular spot known as the Firtina Valley (Storm Valley) which is located in the Rize province. It has a perfect green environment which is a great choice for doing nature hikes and expeditions. Also, there’s a lot of streams and rivers which are great for doing water sport related activities. For people who are interested in mountain climbing, you can visit the Kackar mountains which has an abundance of greenery in the area.
If you’re looking for something a bit more traditional, then there’s always Olympos, which is a perfect spot for ecotourism. Olympos is located in Antalya. A popular sightseeing attraction here are the Carretta-Caretta turtles that reside here. There’s a lot of people who canoe and practice underwater sports in this region. Antalya has a relatively hot climate, so you can visit any time and participate in any kind of water related activities. Then we have the Kelebekler Valley which has a lot of live wildlife and is great for biologist studies.
In the Kelebekler Valley, you can find more than 80 different butterfly species. This is a nice valley where guests can setup a tent and camp. If you’re interested in some artwork, there’s plenty of art related workshops in the region with some self-awareness shops scattered throughout. Throughout Turkey, you might be able to find some field trips as well that support ecological tourism. The support of these activities has grown over recent years. The funding and support for these excursion trips come from various agencies all over Turkey and some volunteers.
