As the de-facto privatisation of the Turkish coastline continues, its accessibility becomes more and more a class issue, excluding local people with smaller incomes or other marginalised groups.
As coastal mass tourism is still the dominating form of tourism in Turkey, there are still some - albeit rare - exceptions and untouched coastal stretches. Nevertheless, even those places, which are often located in a fragile natural environment, are under threat: By over tourism, climate change and the seemingly ever growing need to expand touristic activity.
One of these places are the bays of Phaselis, an ancient city whose ruins from the Roman and Byzantine periods can still be seen today. It is home to endangered species such as the loggerhead sea turtle and to ruins that date back to the 7th century BC, and is thus of great environmental and cultural importance. Being a natural and archaeologically protected area threatened by further touristic exploitation and construction, the historic site can be used as an example to show current issues with the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) in Turkey as well as the question of accessibility of public spaces. Furthermore, its case gives insights on how local protests are crucial to preserve historically and environmentally important spaces.
In the beginning of 2023, construction machinery entered the protected area of Phaselis. With the tender granted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, a construction company began the preparations for facilities such as a cafeteria, parking, welcome centre, lifeguard unit, shower and toilets. Stretching over two beaches (Alacasu and Bostanlık), huge amounts of concrete would be and were used. The locals were quick to act, monitoring the construction works and filing a lawsuit against the tourism development plans.[1] In April of 2023, a meeting of locals, activists and institutions such as the chamber of landscape architects was held to evaluate the situation and to map out the next steps, leading to the publication of a 10-point action plan.[2] Shortly after, the construction works were temporarily stopped until the court’s final decision on the case would be made. Nevertheless, the activities were later recontinued, against public decisions. After continued efforts, the Administrative Court of Antalya unanimously decided that the execution should be stopped. In their justification, the court stated that: “the nature of the construction work […] may cause irreparable or impossible damages in case of its implementation […]”.[3] Adding to this situation, it has been criticised that the was no Environmental Impact Assessment carried out as part of the project tender. Tuncay Koç, a lawyer that was active in the fight against the destruction of Phaselis, assesses the situation like this: “Environmental Impact Assessment activities are only on the legislative level”. In practice, the EIA is often neglected or avoided by using legal loopholes, Tuncay Koç added.
Besides lacking EIA practices, the case of Phaselis also sheds light on another issue which was brought up by local protests and initiatives: The question of access to public spaces and counter-acting privatisation attempts. Given that beaches are a public good by law, one might think that it should be non-debatable that the access to them would in fact be open to all. However, this is not necessarily the case. Recent tendencies lead to an increasing amount of privatised beach use by hotel resorts or to the collection of entry/usage fees. Tuncay Koç calls this phenomenon de-facto-privatisation, which also results from the neo-liberal perspective of seeing cultural sites and nature as fully monetizable commodities. This development is further pushed and supported by the state to make financial gains and foster economic development. As nature is seen and treated as a mere economic resource, access to it is prevented to all those whose usage and enjoyment of nature doesn’t result in a visible monetary gain.[4] According to Tuncay Koç, the privatisation policies also lead to a more rapid exhaustion of natural assets such as water. This largely affects the local communities, who might have been in the affected areas for generations. They would consequently be deprived of access to beaches, and therefore to recreation and connection to their homeland, while simultaneously suffering the consequences that overuse has on their communities.
The protests against constructions of touristic infrastructure are therefore not only an environmental or archaeological issue, but a social one. As the de-facto privatisation of the Turkish coastline continues, its accessibility becomes more and more a class issue, excluding local people with smaller incomes or other marginalised groups.
Circling back to the events in Phaselis, in the end, there has been a positive outcome, meaning a definitive stop to the construction works. But the damage has already been done, to what degree will be seen in the years to come. This success however was only possible thanks to the many locals, activists, initiatives and associations that fought against the touristic development plans and their implementation. In the future, the responsible decision makers and therefore first and foremost the Ministry of Culture and Tourism should keep in mind, that destroying touristic potential for short term gains is not sustainable in the long run. Neither for the Turkish tourism industry and the attractiveness of Turkey as a tourist destination, nor for their nature and needed resilience against climate change. Lastly, and most importantly, the current way of fostering touristic development largely ignores the voices and needs of the local communities living in these places. First steps to change this would be to actively listen to local voices and to actually implement the feedback as well as following the rules of the EIA and other environmental policies, not only in theory, but also in practice.
