Social & Ecological Transformation

After COP28 finally acknowledged the need to transition away from fossil fuels, Santa Marta tried to turn that promise into something more concrete. Journalist Seden Anlar explores whether its phaseout momentum can survive the road to COP31 and the forums where fossil-fuelled power still shapes the rules.

After China banned plastic garbage imports in 2018, Turkey became the leading destination for Europe’s plastic waste, pitching itself as a frontrunner in responsible waste management. In 2025, it collected a record high of 503,000 tons of the European Union’s plastic, and this figure is expected to grow with an upcoming revamp of the bloc’s waste regulations in November.

Drive out of any city in Turkey, and you will soon encounter whole chunks of the landscape missing. Hilltops, ravines and gorges are violently carved away for their limestone, marble and gravel to fuel the country’s construction sector. Elsewhere, some of Anatolia’s most iconic natural areas have turned into toxic open pits to extract high-demand gold and rare earths.

Agroecology in Turkey is more than a set of farming techniques; it is a battleground of ideas. Competing narratives are shaping who controls food systems, how communities thrive, and what the countryside will look like tomorrow.

Knowledge about how to farm is never static, it shifts with changing realities. In the Anatolian village of Karagömlek, rural depopulation and industrial inputs reshape local farming. This article explores, why Agroecology offers a critical perspective for the future.

The mood of COP29 in Baku can be characterised by global and national uncertainties and contradictions about achieving the net zero and 1.5-degree targets. Turkey's strategy can be similarly characterised.

Experts say minimizing the flow of new organic materials into the sea – like phosphorus and nitrogen which constitute fertilizer for phytoplankton and algae – is the most important factor in preventing future outbreaks. 

Farmers, officials and food safety experts said the banned pesticide chlorpyrifos is still used in Turkey due to weak regulations and lackluster enforcement, threatening the public health.

Fish populations in the Black Sea have been increasingly impacted by ecological interference, often in the form of construction or regional development, and also climate change. 

"Nature-based solutions" receive widespread support. Yet they are so vaguely defined that corporations use them as a diversionary tactic for the ongoing destruction of "nature" on an industrial scale.