Mining in A 4,000 Hectare Field in Artvin

In Artvin province, located in northeastern Turkey, locals remain critical towards the opening of a 4150 hectare field to mining.

For a quarter century, locals in Cerattepe struggled against the opening of 250 hectare field to mining, a judicial battle that ended after a local district court cancelled the research license of a foreign mining firm.  

In 2012 Özaltın Mining Ltd., a national firm, has been contracted to do gold, copper, silver and zinc mining research in 4150 hectare area including uptown Cerattepe, Kafkasör Plateau and Genya Mountain.

"Water resources will be polluted"

In Artvin, the debate mostly swirled around the urban water resources and nearby forest in danger of pollution.

A zone adjacent to Hatila National Park has been declared as "tourism improvement and preservation area" by a cabinet order in January. Neighboring Atabarı Ski Facility and City Wood, the debated zone houses several animal and plant species preserved under international treaties.

"Two different verdicts from same court"

Neşe Karahan, Green Artvin Association Chair, said as soon as they heard about the new mining research, all local political authorities including governing AKP scheduled an appointment to meet the energy minister.

"The minister told us that they would analyze potential resources. But than they let the mining firm start its research in a week without thorough analysis," Karahan said. 

Reminding that their case for the cancellation of mining research has been rejected an administrative court in Rize, Karahan protested that the same court ordered a similar license ban in 2008 even though nothing was different this time.

High risk of landslide

The mining firm also showed interested in building four pools that will contain heavy metal waste. However, the location of pools remain controversial since they are planned on area with high risk of landslide. Locals complain that this may lead both to pollution in natural resources and life risk for city dwellers. 

"Natural habitat will disappear"

Some of the worries that locals raised included:

* Construction of kilometers of roads for mining transport, natural habitat will compromised for profit

* Dynamite explosion for mining will booster landslide risk in Artvin, already a notorious region for related incidents

 * Kafkasör will lose its tourism potential and a 30 year long festival tradition will risk cancellation

* The heavy dust cloud as a result of mining will cause public health concerns which will affect people, animals, nature and local bee industry.

A protest march will be held on April 6 at 12pm in downtown. (NV)