site.btaThe Forests in Antalya and Mugla: from Ashes to Green
Less than a year after raging wildfires reduced to ashes the forests in the southern Turkish province of Antalya and southwestern Mugla last summer, they have already been replanted, the Milliyet daily reported. About 70 per cent of the reforestation work has already been completed.
In 2021, about 140,000 hectares of land and forest were reduced to ashes in some 2,800 wildfires. Approximately 126,000 of the total 140,000 hectares were burnt in just 15 days between July 28 and August 13 in 2021.
Mugla and Antalya were worst hit: 91 per cent of all burned land was in Anatolia.
Regreening species included Turkish (Calabrian) pine, oak tree, oleander, carob tree, bay tree and white cypress pine.
In the aftermath of the fires, the local production of honeydew honey in Mugla’s Marmaris region took a severe blow.
Turkey produces 90 per cent of the world’s honeydew (pine) honey, the local authorities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture say.
However, the Turkish pine will take its time and the forests will take about twenty years to grow again, Milliyet noted.
Eight people lost their lives in 299 wildfires that hit 49 out of Turkey’s 81 provinces in the summer of 2021. Some 400 cattle, around 4,500 small livestock and 30,000 poultry perished, and nearly 8,000 beehives were reduced to ashes.
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