Construction project in Istanbul: a canal divides Turkey

Construction on the Istanbul Canal has begun: In 2027 Erdogan’s prestige project is to connect the Black Sea, Marmara Sea and Mediterranean Sea and bring “luck and prosperity”. Local residents and environmentalists have doubts.

It is “a crazy idea”, says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – but the largest construction project in the history of modern Turkey is supposed to “save the future of Istanbul”. Strong words and a great promise that Erdogan makes to the residents of the 16 million city on the Bosporus: A second canal is to be built parallel to the natural waterway of the Bosporus across Istanbul. An artificial waterway, 45 kilometers long, 275 meters wide and 20 meters deep, which will lead from Karaburun on the Turkish Black Sea coast to Kücükcekmece on the Marmara Sea. Six years of construction are planned; The government calculates costs of 13 billion euros – critics, on the other hand, reckon with up to 55 billion.

Cranes, excavators and concrete pumps form the backdrop when President Erdogan and former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim celebrated the start of construction of the “Istanbul Canal” last weekend. The laying of the foundation stone for an eight-lane motorway bridge, which will later also lead over the new shipping route. The channel “is supposed to bring happiness and prosperity to the Turkish people”, so the pathetic words of Yildirim.

Canal is intended to equalize dense shipping traffic

Currently 45,000 ships pass through the natural Bosporus Canal every year. According to the Turkish government, there will be 78,000 cargo and warships by 2050. The already dense shipping traffic with oil and gas tankers as well as with the warships laden with tons of ammunition is difficult to cope with and an incalculable risk of accidents.

The daily civil ferry and passenger traffic between the Asian and European shores of Istanbul are increasingly endangered and expose the city and people to growing dangers. The artificial canal is supposed to give Istanbul more security, cope with the globally growing merchant shipping and secure billions of additional revenue for Turkey.

On the European side in the northern Istanbul area, nature and agriculture still dominate life. A reservoir was created here almost 30 years ago – it will give way to the new shipping route. Environmental experts estimate that with it and along the entire Istanbul Canal, up to 20 percent of Istanbul’s drinking water reservoirs can be lost.

“Death sentence for the farmers of Samlar”

In the village of Samlar, Kadir Kurt’s family has owned large agricultural areas for generations. People live from growing wheat and sunflowers and farm animals. Kurt is an opponent of the canal project: “We will not be allowed to make big profits through the canal,” he says. “They will try to relocate us cheaply. Kurt is convinced that the abundant wildlife in the area and the existing forests will be irretrievably destroyed – and so will the future of many farmers.

“I’m 56 years old – I can’t work as a guard in a factory in the future,” he says. “I can’t learn a new profession either. The Istanbul Canal is the death sentence for the farmers in the village.”

Prices soared in just five years

For the planners of the Turkish government, the construction of an artificial waterway alone is not enough: parallel to the construction of the canal, which also includes port facilities and loading stations for freighters, an artificial city and economic region for 500,000 inhabitants are to be built on both banks. Apartments and houses are to be built on what is mostly agricultural land today; plus marinas and luxury residential complexes.

The real estate agent Murat Özçelik has been in the construction area of ​​the planned canal for five years – a man with foresight. “Five years ago, a hectare of land cost around 20,000 euros; today it costs up to 100,000 euros and more. People only slowly began to understand that the project could become a reality – we believed in it from the start,” he says .

136 million square meters are planned as building land for the new artificial city in the course of the canal construction, reports the broker. Most of it has already been sold – almost all of it to local investors. “Believe me, the farmers here don’t really do agriculture,” claims Özçelik. “You are either already rich enough or you are opposition and therefore against the AKP.”

Environmental madness?

The Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, many citizens of the city and practically the entire Turkish opposition condemn the mega-project as unrealistic and environmentally insane. They demand the immediate stop of all planning and construction work. The Turkish Association for Nature Conservation sees the groundwater and drinking water supply in Istanbul at risk.

Ahmet Dursun Kahraman, President of the Chamber of Turkish Environmental Engineers, criticizes the canal plans as a purely political project: “It makes no economic sense – shipping traffic has not increased but decreased in the last 20 years. At the same time, ecological systems, historical and cultural goods are becoming more common as well as forests irretrievably destroyed. ”

Representatives of Turkish and international environmental organizations fear that the water exchange between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea, which has been running naturally over the Bosporus for thousands of years, may get out of step through the second artificial canal. With catastrophic consequences: The Marmara Sea could “tip over” and become a stinky, oxygen-poor broth – with irreparable damage to the fish stocks and the entire flora and fauna.