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Rivers and Struggles:

Rivers and Struggles:. The Privatization of Use Rights of Rivers in Turkey Mine Islar, PhD Candidate Centre of Sustainability Studies LUCSUS. Overview. Context: Neoliberalisation in the water governance Theory: Justice as Recognition The case of Yuvarlakcay and many others

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Rivers and Struggles:

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  1. Rivers and Struggles: The Privatization of Use Rights of Rivers in Turkey Mine Islar, PhD Candidate Centre of Sustainability Studies LUCSUS

  2. Overview • Context: Neoliberalisation in the water governance • Theory: Justice as Recognition • The case of Yuvarlakcay and many others • Concluding Remarks

  3. Context • Significant legal reforms as part of neoliberal transition (1984. Law no. 3096 for BOT model, 2001. no. 4628 Electricity Market Law, Water Use Rights Concessions, structural reform in 2007, DSI-MoEF). • More than 1700 hydroelectric power plants (HEPP) are licensed and in the process of being licensed to private companies.

  4. New chapter

  5. Justice As Recognition (Young 1990, Fraser 1997,1998, 2000 and Schlosberg 2007) • ”The battle for recognition is as large as the one for the fair distribution” (Schlosberg, 2007, p.21). • ”Powerful social groups never die of thirst. It is the politically excluded, socially marginalized and/or economically poor suffered the most” (Swnygedouw 2006, p.63).

  6. So the question is... • How does this particular form of privatization legally, socially, politically exclude rural communities and undermine alternative framings of nature?

  7. Example from Yuvarlakcay, Southwest Anatolia • A company lease the use rights of Yuvarlakcay for 49 years in 2009. • At least 1000 trees were cut in one night, area was needed for the construction of the plant. • Around 3000 people joined the resistance in order to stop HEPP project. • ”We protect the nature for years, not the state!”

  8. 300 m: regülatör YUVARLAKÇAY HES Transmission Channel (2256 m) Yükleme havuzu 3200 m:Plant 77 m fall 0 m:spring TOPGÖZÜMonumental Trees Protection Area 2000 m: SForest 5000 m: Fish Farmsi

  9. ”Where is justice? Where is my right as a citizen? Aren’t we counted as citizens by the state?” Struggles for Recognition

  10. Legal Exclusion All rivers are owned by the state according to the Turkish constitution and giving the rights of water use to companies doesn’t mean that we are giving up its ownership. State Hydraulic Affairs No rights of environment and people protected in the water use concession contracts which regulate this process. Use for energy is prioritized over other uses of water! Urgent expropriations to ease the contracts of HEPPs and dams. EIA process is ambiguous. Irreversible impacts on key biodiversity are not properly addressed even in the EIA.

  11. Social Exclusion ”These people are cahil (illiterate), they don’t know what they are against, they are against everything. We are doing what the legislation allows us to do...” Employee of a company. Uncertain future. Loss of income and force to migrate. Social conflicts between families, people and public authorities etc. for and against HEPP projects. Opening a law suit is costly and need to have legal knowledge.

  12. PoliticalExclusion Many had been walking for two months from five corners of the country to protest hydro plants. They are still being prevented from entering the capital after a week-long standoff with riot police outside Ankara. (Guardian, 29 May 2011). The State eases its burden by 45 billion dollars by allowing the private sector to build hydroelectricity power plants . VeyselEroglu, The Minister of Environment and Forestry of Turkey (Press Release Ministry of Environment and Forestry, 2010) The State sold us for 49 years. Inhabitant of AksuValley.

  13. Concluding Remarks Privatization of use rights of rivers relies on politics of exclusion in a number of ways: 1-Framing use of rivers only for hydroelectricity purposes 2-Exclusion of rights of rural communities and of environment from legal frameworks; 3- Downplaying local and nation-wide resistance at the political and discursive level.

  14. Concluding Remarks • Struggles over Turkish rivers do not only reflect the conflicting interests of stakeholders but also a struggle of recognition for the rural lifestyles. • Current well defined legal concepts such as `public good`should be reconsidered.

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