October 23, 2003—More than 70 percent of Turkey's land area faces soil degradation from erosion. The result is low productivity and low rural incomes. Over a 10-year period, the Eastern Anatolia Watershed Rehabilitation project has improved the lives of farmers in more than 300 mountain villages by enabling them to grow new cash crops and by farming techniques that have boosted agricultural production dramatically. Since the project's launch, rural incomes have at least doubled. Satellite images reveal a marked difference in vegetation, which will help reduce floods and sedimentation.
The project was designed to increase the productivity of forest land, promote the sustainable use of marginal farmland, and increase the involvement of local communities in planning and managing their own natural resources. Smaller projects have been carried out in 11 provinces, covering 617,000 hectares and benefiting 227,000 people.
It provided for improved management and cultivation of fodder, improved range management, reforestation and oak coppice rehabilitation for fodder and fuelwood, soil conservation, improved crop farming and fruit farming, construction of ponds for supplementary irrigation, and gully protection. It also offered alternative income-generating opportunities such as the production of horticultural crops, forages to support stall feeding, aromatic and medicinal plants with export opportunities, bee-keeping, and vegetable production.
The success of the Eastern Anatolia Watershed Management Project hinged on a participatory approach that fostered unprecedented cooperation, organizationally and technically. Government agencies and local communities jointly planned, implemented, and continually fine-tuned agricultural productivity activities within a program of local forestry and soil conservation.
ECSSD Sector Manager and former Task Manager Marjory-Anne Bromhead says the Eastern Anatolia Watershed Management project has been a success—restoring sustainable land-use to the watersheds and increasing income levels—in part because of the institutional and behavioral innovations it introduced.
"Provincial sectoral agencies truly worked together for the first time," Bromhead says, "developing and implementing watershed rehabilitation programs with the direct participation of local populations."
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