Speaker: Sunay Demircan, Foundation of Nature Conservation Centre / Turkey

 In Latin, “cultura” means the processing of the earth. The metaphorical meaning of the abstract concept is the processing of the human and intellectual mind. What makes this process powerful and even passes through generations is the nature itself.

The basic material of production is nature. As the relationship between production and consumption changes throughout the human history, the relationship with nature has changed, therefore the concept of nature has changed.

During the hunter-gatherer periods, the nature was sanctified by humans; with the first settlements, the nature was tried to be managed in small scales; in ancient Greece, the nature was considered as an organism which had its own mind, body and soul; with Renaissance, the mind was excluded from the nature and humans associated the process of the nature to a mechanical order, such as a clock. 

Different cultures live in different habitats in our world. All these cultures have their own nature designs. Chinese and Indian culture, Central Asia Turkic culture, Oceanic communities’ culture have all different nature designs compared to Western design. 

The desiccation of wetlands which started during the colonization period of Northern America hit its peak when the Europeans settled in Midwest. In the 1920s the federal government provided financial support and the immense land clearing and desiccation work of the reed beds and marshes in Midwest started.  As a result of the rapid desiccation of the wetlands in these regions, the ground water level dropped in many areas, the water on the surface evaporated, as the water disappeared, the vegetation covering the earth disappeared as well, and the land became an infertile desert. Then, in the 1940s, the famous dust storms called “the dirty thirties” began. It was a complete ecological disaster. Millions of decares of land became unusable, hundreds of thousands of people left their homes, dust storms and epidemics became widespread, and decision-makers realized that desiccation activities were the main reason behind all these calamities. 

However, this realization did not entail an action to define and protect the wetlands as ecosystems. In the 1960s, wetlands in North America were still seen as hunting ground for water birds, like geese and ducks.

We see that the first steps to give wetlands its current context were taken in Europe in 1960. Water birds started to be considered as objects to be observed rather than objects to be hunted. The value changes, recreates the concept. 

In 1960, MAR (MARshes, MARecages, MARismas) conferences started under the leadership of IUCN. 

In 1964, the first educational material on wetlands and water, Liquid Assets, was published with the support of UNESCO (the first edition was 14 thousand, the second edition was made in 1979).

This process would then lead to international Ramsar Convention.

In this design process, Kızılırmak Basin, which is one of the remaining rare natural wetlands of Turkey, is a nice indicator of change in conservation and management approaches over time.

The basin, which was once intended to be transformed into an agricultural area, is named a UNESCO World Heritage Site today.

The seminar is jointly organized by the Technical Network on Water and the Technical Network on Land & Tenure.