90 pct of 11 mln tree saplings planted by gov't 'died'

Duvar English

Some 90 percent of the 11 million tree saplings planted last year have reportedly died due to having been planted in the wrong season.

Agriculture and Forest Labor Union head Şükrü Durmuş said that the simultaneous planting of the trees was "a populist operation intended to cover up their destruction."

"It was clear that the saplings that were planted by people that were not capable of properly doing so. If only our claims were proven false. Based on our research in several areas, we observed that 90 percent of the saplings had died," Durmuş told daily Cumhuriyet.

"This is murder," he added.

Some 11 million trees were planted on Nov. 11, 2019 at 11.11 a.m. local time as part of an event called "Breath for the Future." A number of trees were planted in Ankara by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli.

Experts had warned at the time that because of the lack of sufficient moisture in the soil due to the season, only ten percent of the trees would end up surviving. The event was also branded as merely a showy affair based on breaking a Guinness World Record by critics.

"We and forestry scientists alike had warned that the conditions for this endeavor were not appropriate. In a season where there is not enough rain, we said that it was wrong to launch this campaign solely for the purpose of entering the Guinness Book of World Records," Durmuş said.

"We are once again warning the Ministry of Agriculture and Foresty and the General Directorate of Forestry: In 17 years, you gave away thousands of hectares of forestland to multinational companies to be used as mine sites," he also said, adding that the destruction caused by these companies could not even be fixed for generations, much less via the planting of 11 million saplings.

Shortly after Cumhuriyet's report, the ministry denied that the tree saplings died, saying that 95 percent of the 11 million trees are healthy.