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Abstract
Water is defined as the source of life. It is life. Nonetheless, the right to water has only recently been accepted as one of the human rights in the General Assembly of United Nations in July 2010. Couple months later a second resolution following the General Assembly decision is accepted in the United Nations Human Rights Council affirming the right to water and sanitation as human rights. But yet, access to clean water remains as one of the biggest challenges of humanity. Especially the philosophy of development around the globe, which sees the market as a solution to environmental issues, exacerbates the problem. The concepts such as “liberal environmentalism”, “green neoliberalism” and “market environmentalism” have stemmed from such an understanding, which sees privatization of natural resources necessary for their efficient use and for the prevention of environmental degradation. In line with this conceptualization, the policies and regulations that are governing the nature and commodifying the natural resources are creating various forms of “accumulation by dispossession”. This article aims to be on the critical side of market environmentalism by trying to show how individual citizens are taking the function of the state for protecting their environment against neoliberalization of nature. More specifically, it analyzes the effects of the hydroelectric power plants on local communities in northeastern region of Turkey.
Notes
1. Mark Purcell’s latest work on Lefebvre titled “Possible Worlds: Henri Lefebvre and the Right to the City” (Citation2013) further investigates Lefebvre’s conception of the right to the city by evaluating Lefebvre’s work as a whole. Purcell argues that the latter’s vision concerning the right to the city was radical yet not impossible to realize. According to Purcell, Lefebvre envisions a city created by and for its users beyond the control of the state and capitalism. Thus, Lefebvre’s right to the city is also regarded as a utopian idea, which would constitute an urban revolution.
2. The terms “sustainability” and “renewable energy resources” are used together in most cases. But it is important to note that it is still controversial whether there can ever be a sustainable nature without much change in people’s current styles of life. The main concern in most of the climate change debates is still how to find a way to keep the current world with low-carbon emissions rather than finding radical systemic alternatives (Sultana and Loftus Citation2012, 11). Therefore, “sustainability for what?” remains one of the core issues in political ecology today. For further information about the discussions on environmental sustainability, climate change policy and their “post-political” nature, please see Swyngedouw Citation2010 and Žižek Citation2008.
3. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the dependency argument on the basis of which the government legitimizes its authority to initiate developmental projects that are highly controversial as to their impact on nature. But for further information about government’s stance towards energy dependency, please refer to official government websites concerning the problem of energy: http://www.enerji.gov.tr/tr-TR/Sayfalar/Misyon-Vizyon.
4. UN General Assembly, “The human right to water and sanitation”, 3 August 2010, A/Res/64/292: http://www.onwa.ca/upload/documents/un-water-as-a-human-right.pdf.
5. Human Rights Council, “Human rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation”, 6 October 2010, A/HRC/Res/15/9.
6. And particularly in the case of the dams, these constructions deprive them of right to take part in cultural life.
7. Originally published in 2007 by HLRN (Housing Land Rights Network in 2007): http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Housing/Guidelines_en.pdf.
8. “Anadolu'nun İsyanı”, anonymous, is one of the best examples available at http://anadolunehirleri.org/tr.html.
9. Personal interview, July 2012, Rize-Trabzon.
11. “Protected site” means “sit alanı” in Turkish.
12. Personal interview, 27 June 2012, Yakup Okumusoğlu, Karadeniz Ereğlisi.
13. “Fırtına” means “storm” in Turkish. The World Wildlife Fund declared this valley as one of the one hundred forests that are in danger and should be protected. The valley is a natural habitat of a great biodiversity: 537 plants, 136 birds, 30 mammals, 21 reptiles of different kinds and 116 endemic plants (Derelerin Kardesliği Platformu Citation2010, 3).
14. The related government web page concerning the EIA can be found here: <http://www.csb.gov.tr/gm/ced/index.php?Sayfa=sayfaicerikhtml&IcId=691&detId=736&ustId=691>.
15. EIA processes in Turkey have been quite problematic from the beginning. The regulation that determines the process has been subject to change 17 times since 1993 (Duru Citation2014). All those changes have aimed to ease the procedural problems for the investors. Thus, the state has tended to serve the interests of the investors by undermining this procedure as a requirement. In other words, inadequate reports clear the way for further environmental degradation.
16. It is also important to mention yet another problem with EIA, which is the lack of cumulative impact assessment (Kentel and Alp 2013, 41). In most cases, there is more than one HEPP project along any given river. However, the EIAs are prepared individually, without taking into consideration the accumulative impact of these projects following one another on the same river.
17. Personal interview with Yakup Okumusoğlu, 27 June 2012, Karadeniz Ereğlisi.
18. The interviews with lawyers in this field confirm that these reports were not properly done; hence they are in most cases the first issues to be objected to in HEPP trials. Additionally, in most of the court cases that made the EIA objection, the court decided for stay of execution. Thus, the project halted for some time period.
19. Personal interviews conducted in July-August 2012, in Trabzon and Rize. In many villages, the rumors begin about a possible construction and the villagers only become aware of them as the machines appear on the site. This is true especially for Rize and Trabzon.
20. It is also important to note that, in some villages some of the villagers were welcoming of the HEPP projects because of the opportunity to work for them. In villages like Uzuntarla, Trabzon and Ikizdere, Rize, many admitted that they welcomed the projects since there would be employment opportunities in the village. However, in the aftermath of the construction, the HEPPs didn’t bring any prosperity to the region since they required few workers, mainly experts, at the time of the operation. Thus, people in these villages have come to regret their approval of construction at the beginning, which only brought a short-term gain.
21. For example, according to Heijmans in Philippines local communities see the governments’ development projects as being more disastrous than natural hazards (Heijmans Citation2004, 124).
22. State and government can, unfortunately, be used interchangeably in the context of Turkey. Especially this has become increasingly evident in the governance style of the current government.
23. Romeyka is a form of ancient Greek, which is currently being spoken around 50 villages in the upper valleys of Trabzon (Jones Citation2013).