Minister Yumaklı announces 8,500 new jobs

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry İbrahim Yumaklı attended the "Forests in the Climate Change Process Workshop" program organized within the scope of the 4th Agriculture and Forestry Council.

Yumaklı, who pointed out that technology and industrialization have made people's lives easier since the industrial revolution, while on the other hand causing environmental pollution, said that the ecosystem and people are negatively affected, especially by greenhouse gas emissions. Yumaklı, who explained that they are examining all these issues under the title of climate change , said, "If we consider that the world will warm by 4.5 degrees by the end of the 21st century, we should not forget that the problems that will come will affect us exponentially."

Yumaklı, who pointed out that with climate change, pests have increased significantly not only in forests but also in other areas of agricultural production, said that the sustainable development of forests is extremely important and that they are making efforts in this regard.

"The resources allocated to Green Homeland are over 200 billion liras"

Yumaklı underlined that forests being carbon sink areas provide significant advantages in reducing the amount of carbon in the air and made the following statements:

"The resources allocated to our Green Homeland in today's real figures are over 200 billion liras. During this time period, nearly 8 billion seeds and saplings were brought together in the soil. Thanks to this, today we have become a country with significant forest assets in the world with 24.3 million hectares and developing them. One of the most important pillars of rural development is the forest and forestry sector, we have 57 projects and in the last 22 years, nearly 34 billion liras worth of grants and support have been provided to 285 thousand families. Not only wood is obtained from forests, non-wood forest products also make a significant contribution to our economy. Last year, our forest products sector contributed around 1.4 billion dollars to our country's economy."

Recalling that approximately 2 thousand forest parks have been opened to citizens, Yumaklı reported that there are 129 ecotourism routes and that they will increase this number to 200 by 2028. Noting that 85 percent of forest fires are caused by humans, Yumaklı emphasized that the ability and capacity to combat forest fires must be highly developed. Noting that Turkey's water throwing capacity has reached approximately 450 tons with 27 planes and 105 helicopters, Yumaklı made the following assessments:

"The number of water tenders increased by 3 times to 1766, and the number of construction equipment increased by 6 times to 831. There are also 2,742 first response vehicles. We are the first country in Europe and the second in the world with a total of 14 unmanned aerial vehicles. We monitor our forests 24/7 from 776 towers, 184 of which are smart. We have 4,796 fire pools, 25,000 forest heroes and approximately 127,000 volunteers. Therefore, I would like to share some good news from here in order to create a stronger defense line in terms of protecting the 'Green Homeland' and to be more effective in combating forest fires due to the very rapid and devastating climate change. We will be adding our new team of 8,500 people, including 3,105 fire workers, 3,477 support personnel and 150 engineers, to our own teams in the coming months."

"We are signing cooperation agreements with many countries in the field of forestry"

Yumaklı explained that they continue to monitor the forests periodically in terms of existence, development, biodiversity and health at the 902 level observation point, and that risk maps are created with the data obtained from here.

Yumaklı pointed out that creating climate-resistant forests will become an important gain for the country with the ongoing project in the fight against climate change, and noted the following:

"It is important to carry out afforestation projects using local species, especially against drought, pests and erosion. Recently, rainfall in narrow areas has started to cause serious erosion and landslide hazards as well as floods. Forests damaged by fire or any other reason are definitely afforested by the end of the following year; there is no second alternative to this. We are signing cooperation agreements in the field of forestry with many countries on this issue."

"We release approximately 1 million beneficial organisms into our forests"

Bekir Karacabey, General Director of Forestry, said that climate change is becoming more and more noticeable every day, especially with floods, inundations, droughts and forest fires.

Stating that more than half of the country's forests are 1st and 2nd degree sensitive areas in terms of forest fires, Karacabey stated that they continue their preparations for abnormal situations in terms of both technical and technological aspects and personnel.

Karacabey pointed out that the negative impact of climate change, which threatens forests, has caused the number of many harmful organisms to increase, and said, "We are fighting biologically by releasing approximately 1 million beneficial organisms into our forests every year in 54 different locations in our country. Water scarcity causes stress in our trees, as it does in all plants. We continue our work to keep our forests healthy and to make them resistant to fire and insect damage."