(Olive) oil vs. coal

For seven weeks in the fall of 2014, the villagers of Yirca kept watch over their olive groves day and night, warming themselves around a fire and taking turns sleeping in a small shelter. Sentinels with binoculars were stationed under the pines on a nearby hill with a sweeping view across the broad, flat valley. They were scanning for any sign of movement by the Kolin Group, the company that was seeking to expropriate this land to build and operate a 510-megawatt, coal-fired power plant.

"If the scouts saw anything, they'd get on their phones and call down, 'The bulldozers are coming!' and the people would rush to block the road leading to the groves," says Mustafa Akin. The avuncular former teacher now serves as muhtar—the elected village head—of Yirca, a tiny settlement of 400 in western Turkey, 50 miles inland from the Aegean Sea.

For a time, despite several confrontations with Kolin Group workers, the villagers' vigil was largely successful. But one night in early November, the bulldozers came back, this time accompanied by two busloads of private security guards and a "rapid expropriation" order from the government. Arguments broke out, and then scuffles. Four people were hauled off in handcuffs; others say they were beaten by the guards. Before the sun rose, 6,000 olive trees had been ripped out of the ground....

What happened that night in Yırca shocked people around Turkey, especially coming as it did just a few months after an appalling industrial disaster killed 301 coal miners in nearby Soma. But it is hardly the only place in the country where corporate interests -- particularly those related to the energy and construction sectors -- are running roughshod over nature and rural communities. Earlier this year, I traveled to Yırca to see how the villagers were faring following the loss of their olive trees, and to try and put their story into the context of the larger battles playing out across Turkey.

This reporting appeared as a feature piece in the September/October 2015 issue of Sierra magazine. For a visual snapshot of life in Yırca, visit my personal blog, where I've posted some photos from my trip.

Read my article, "The Olive and the Power Plant," online, or see it as it appeared in Sierra's September/October 2015 issue (pdf).

Environmental battles along Turkey's Black Sea coast

Turkey's little-visited Black Sea coast has become a hotbed of resistance to dams and other environmentally damaging hydropower projects, part of an ambitious national development and privatization agenda that includes the building of coal plants, nuclear plants, and nearly 2,000 new dams, as well as many new mining and other industrial operations.

The Black Sea region’s lush forests and small mountain villages provide a striking backdrop for the fierce battle being waged there, a fight pitting farmers, fishermen, and beekeepers against the powerful government and corporate interests seemingly intent on bulldozing the landscape and damming its life-giving waterways in the name of “progress” and profit.

“We were born hearing the voice of this river and we will die with it” is a commonly expressed sentiment among Black Sea villagers, whose honey harvests, hazelnut crops, and vegetable gardens all depend upon the region’s rivers. Though the threat of dams looms the largest, gold mining and other extractive industries also put people’s health, homes, and livelihoods at risk.

Local activists who have rallied against such threats often end up facing new ones: lawsuits filed against them by hydropower companies, many with close ties to Turkey's ruling political party; intimidation and even violence from police and other security forces seeking to break up protests; vilification as traitors, communists, or even terrorists by government authorities; and pressure from local officials and religious leaders not to speak out against such projects, and to take below-market buyouts for homes in the path of construction.

With a grant from Mongabay's Special Reporting Initiatives, I traveled this spring across the eastern Black Sea, from the port city of Trabzon to the mountain towns of Artvin, Murgul, and Yusufeli, taking in the gorgeous – but in many cases already blighted – scenery and talking to local residents and activists about the threats they and their homes face.

Read my first two articles from this reporting trip on the Mongabay website:

• New solidarity in struggle to protect Turkey's 'life spaces'

• Turkish government bears down on rural resistance to mining and hydro projects

Two-wheeled revolution?

When you think of bike-friendly cities, Abu Dhabi doesn't come readily to mind. Neither, frankly, does Istanbul. But the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National is trying to give cycling culture a bit of a kickstart in the United Arab Emirates, promoting a ‪#‎CycleToWorkUAE‬ day on 13 January 2015.

As part of the paper's coverage ahead of the event, one of its opinion editors asked me to write a piece about efforts to develop a cycling culture in Turkey -- which, despite appearances, have come a long way in the past decade, though there is still much work to be done to make the streets safe for cyclists, not to mention pedestrians and runners like myself.

I tip my hat to the intrepid cyclists in both countries, especially those in Turkey who generously shared their experiences and opinions with me.

Read my article, "Istanbul Is Slowly But Surely Getting On Its Bike," on The National's website.

Fishy business in Istanbul

Back in the 1950s, it wasn’t unusual for fishermen plying the waters off Istanbul to land tuna weighing hundreds of pounds, or to have one of the massive fish leap out of the sea and over the prow of their boat. Dolphins cavorted alongside fishing vessels that hauled in lobster, oysters, razor clams, four kinds of crab and eight varieties of mussels.

“Fishermen in their 70s and 80s tell stories depicting Istanbul like an island in the middle of the ocean. It’s as if we’ve moved to a totally different place since then,” says Defne Koryürek, the founder of Slow Food Istanbul, which has organized an annual holiday to draw attention to the city’s rapidly depleting waterways and to try and reverse the tide.

Celebrated each October with fishing competitions, film screenings, children’s art activities, talks, and special meals, the holiday is named after one of Istanbul’s favorite fish, the fatty, flavorful — but now endangered — lüfer (bluefish)...

I've been following the issue of overfishing in Istanbul and the fight to save the lüfer for a few years now, previously covering the start of the campaign to increase the minimum catch size; the inaugural Lüfer Bayramı; and the dangerous world of illegal fishing for Treehugger.com.

Now you can read the rest of my latest article on this subject, "Istanbul Chefs Band Together To Save Their Favorite Fish," on Zester Daily.

Grim future for historical gardens?

Walking the 6.5-kilometer length of the city's ancient land walls my first year in Istanbul, I was delighted to discover lush green vegetable gardens growing in the shadow of these 1,600-year-old fortifications. Later, I learned from a historian specializing in Ottoman gardens that these small market plots – known in Turkish as bostan – were established on very fertile soil and had been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.

As with so many other things at that time, it seemed perfectly reasonable to assume that tradition would continue on for many more generations to come. But this summer, with the dust from the Gezi Park turmoil not yet settled down, I received an urgent message alerting local press that bulldozers had moved in to raze some of these gardens near the Yedikule fortress.

With tensions high in the city, a fellow foreign journalist and I who arrived on the scene to report on the story became embroiled in a heated conflict over the future of the gardens – and even targeted as interlopers by supporters of their destruction. The angry rhetoric being spread at the highest levels throughout the Gezi Park protests was on full display.

Shaken but undeterred, I wrote a piece for The Atlantic's CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) about the threat to the bostan and how it ties in with larger issues of urban planning, public space, and public participation that are currently the subject of hot debate in Istanbul.

My story was subsequently picked up by the regional news sites Eurasianet and Green Prophet, and my photos of the bostan were used by the ecological agriculture website A Growing Culture.

Read my article, "Centuries-Old Gardens Are the Latest Battleground in Istanbul," on CityLab.

Tales of a TreeHugger

For the past four years, I've been writing for TreeHugger.com as the popular green website's Istanbul correspondent, blogging about environmental issues primarily in Turkey and the region, but also elsewhere in the world, following my interests in art, food, travel, urban planning, and other topics.

Blogging for TreeHugger provided an excuse to contact and meet all sorts of fascinating people; the opportunity to cover events such as the 5th World Water Forum and the London School of Economics' Urban Age conference; and the chance to raise the profile of places I care about – Istanbul, of course, but also Beirut, which I fell in love with on a 2010 visit, and Lake Urmia in Iran, where my grandfather originated and where I hope to travel someday. (It also let me occasionally indulge my nostalgia for San Francisco and baseball.) One of my posts got picked up by the popular tech site Boing Boing, while another led to an assignment for BBC Wildlife magazine.

Now, 656 blog posts later, I'm moving on due to some changes at the site. I've already wrapped up a baker's dozen worth of my favorite posts related to Turkey for my personal blog, The Turkish Life. Here's an assortment of 10 more stories on other topics that I enjoyed writing for TreeHugger.com:

• “Artists Turn Water Into Masterpieces (Slideshow)” (June 26, 2009)

• “Boosting Recycling, Scavenger Incomes in Jordan” (Aug. 23, 2009)

• “Chasing Orchids and Fireflies in Central Colorado” (Sep. 27, 2009)

• “Naturally Temperature-Conditioned Traditional Courtyard Homes: Ready for a Renaissance?” (Feb. 3, 2010)

• “American University Students Help Create Afghanistan's First List of Protected Species” (Feb. 6, 2010)

• “'Pretty' Pollution Photos Show Depths of Minnesota Lake's Environmental Distress (Slideshow)” (Feb. 11, 2010)

• “Two Intrepid Cyclists Embark on a Silk Road Adventure With an Environmental Twist” (Jan. 12, 2011)

• “Traditional Landscapes With a Twist: Photographer Yao Lu Makes Mountains out of China's Rubble Heaps” (May 11, 2011)

• “Artist's 'Three Gorges' Video Installation Takes Viewers Into a Disappearing Landscape” (Nov. 5, 2011)

• “Swim Down Through a Sea of Trash With Dramatic, Eerily Beautiful Photos by Mandy Barker” (Feb. 8, 2012)

You can find my full archive of TreeHugger posts (for now, at least) on my contributor page.

New light on human-wildlife conflict

A post I wrote for TreeHugger this spring about a Kenyan boy's creative method of keeping lions away from his family's farm attracted the attention of an editor from BBC Wildlife magazine, who commissioned me to look into the topic further.

I consulted with experts on the viability of the young inventor's idea and learned many more interesting things about human-wildlife conflict in Africa than I could fit into the final piece, a short article for the "Agenda" section of the magazine's July 2012 issue.

Read my article for BBC Wildlife, "Lions in the light": jpg

Into the wilds of northeast Turkey

TRAVEL

Into the wild

The spectacular landscapes around Kars beckon birdwatchers, nature-lovers, and history buffs. Words and photography by Jennifer Hattam

I can feel the small bird trembling as I hold it in my cupped hands and walk outside the weathered metal trailer to release it. Bits of feathers explode off its back as it hurriedly takes flight into the crisp, clean air of remote northeast Turkey.

Inside the trailer, Sedat blows gently on the underside of a penduline tit, ruffling the bird’s feathers back from its belly to reveal a tiny round bulge beneath the skin. ‘It’s going to be a mother,’ he says with a smile.

The area around Kars has a bleak reputation, in part due to Orhan Pamuk’s dark portrayal in his acclaimed novel ‘Snow’. And while winters are indeed harsh, with up to four months of snow and temperatures plummeting as low as -40˚C, the vast landscape of high plateaus and green lowlands vividly comes to life in the spring.

Foals and calves totter on shaky legs in lush mountain meadows where nomadic herders pitch their tents. Delicate purple crocuses and bright red poppies – the colour of the traditional bridal veil that gives them their Turkish name, gelincik – burst from the earth. And thousands of migratory birds stop over at Kuyucuk Lake and the Aras River wetlands, where local environmentalists running field research stations have spotted more than two-thirds of all bird species recorded in Turkey.

Russian and Armenian heritage

Unlike their avian counterparts, few human visitors to Turkey make it as far as Kars. Most who do come to see the haunting ruins of Ani, an important trading stop on the Silk Road and the 10th-century capital of a medieval Armenian kingdom. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to travel the 42km to Ani without a private car, though a municipality-run shuttle service is scheduled to start this summer. But the trip is well worth the effort or expense.

Imposing basalt walls bring an end to a long, rutted road that passes through tiny villages seemingly little changed since Ani’s heyday. Beyond the massive main gate, stone churches, palaces, mosques, caravanserais and hamams rise up out of the overgrown grass like islands in the sea. Down in a steep canyon, what’s left of an ancient bridge hangs over the Aras River separating Turkey and Armenia, its impassable state reflecting the closed border between the two neighbours.

Despite the ongoing rift, the Caucasus influence remains strong in the region’s cuisine, architecture and culture. Like other Turkish cities, Kars has more than its share of multicoloured concrete blocks, but they are interspersed with stately Russian buildings made of large, finely cut dark stones. The landmark Fethiye Mosque was once a Russian Orthodox church, its onion domes later swapped out for minarets. Both the Kars Castle looming above town and the Sarıkamış ski area some 50km south-west of the city were the scenes of fierce fighting during World War I, claiming many Russian and Turkish lives.

Remnants of an even older Kars reveal themselves on the slope leading up to the castle, where the 10th-century 12 Apostles Church (Kümbet Mosque) has retained its distinctive Armenian architecture despite being converted back and forth to serve both Christian and Muslim worshippers over the years. Crumbling Seljuk and Ottoman hamams cluster around Kars Stream and the 16th-century Taş Köprü (Stone Bridge) at the base of the castle hill, an area now full of laidback tea gardens.

New tourism initiatives

Long reliant on Ani, the castle and skiing at Sarıkamış to attract visitors, Kars is awakening to its full tourism potential. Last year, the house of famous Turkish poet Namık Kemal was converted into a cultural centre devoted to keeping alive the aşık (minstrel) tradition of storytelling through song. New guided tours show the city through the eyes of Pamuk, the Russian author Alexander Pushkin and the Greek-Armenian writer George Gurdjieff, three famous figures who have depicted Kars in their literary works.

With some of the country’s most spectacular and biodiverse landscapes right in Kars’s backyard, nature tourism is also gaining ground as a way to draw more people to the region without spoiling it. Homestays are available in the nearby village of Boğatepe, where a new cheese museum celebrates traditional products such as the hard yellow Kars gravyer and the unusual local cecil, which tastes like a cross between string cheese and blue cheese.

The Kars-based conservation organization KuzeyDoğa is setting up a visitor and environmental education centre near its field station at bucolic Kuyucuk Lake, a birdwatcher’s paradise. This summer the group will run its first nature tour for foreign travellers, featuring wildlife tracking in Sarıkamış – home to bears, wolves and boars – and bird-watching at Kuyucuk. It is also working with Balyolu, a new initiative to train female beekeepers and take visitors on honey-tasting walking tours. With dozens of bee-friendly plant species thriving in the area, it’s quite possible for every village to lay claim to a sweet taste all of its own.

[BOX] Travel basics

Regular flights from Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir land at Kars airport, 10km from the city centre.

An attractive boutique hotel in an old Russian mansion, the Kar’s Otel (www.karsotel.com, 0474 212 16 16) is the pick of the somewhat-limited lodging options. Its newly opened Kar’s Store restaurant offers good local food, wine, live music and folk dancing. The Hotel Temel (Yenipazar Caddesi No. 9, 0474 223 13 76) is a cheaper, more basic alternative.

The women-run Kamer Vakfı Mutfak ve Café (Halit Paşa Caddesi No. 97, 0474 212 89 57) serves excellent homemade specialties such as hengel, a type of mantı (Turkish ravioli); kesme aşı, a green lentil soup with noodles and mint; and warm, almost ginger-bready helva. Goose is another local favourite dish.

The Turkish-language online Kars City Guide (www.karskentrehberi.com) gives a very thorough overview of the area’s history, culture and sightseeing opportunities.

[BOX] How to volunteer

Each spring and fall, the conservation group KuzeyDoğa Society operates bird research stations at two wetland areas near Kars. Some 200 volunteers from 20 different countries have spent two weeks or more helping watch, count and band (ring) birds at the Kuyucuk and Aras stations. Both facilities are located in peaceful, beautiful rural areas, affording opportunities to hike, swim and relax in between checking nets, collecting data and banding birds.

No experience is necessary, though licensed ringers are in high demand. Conditions are basic, meals hearty and the scenery unparalleled. This year’s spring activities run between March 15 and early June. Contact KuzeyDoğa (0474 212 38 84, www.kuzeydoga.org) for details.

This article was originally published in the March 2012 issue of Time Out Istanbul magazine. See if as it appeared in print: jpg | pdf

For more photos, visit my Flickr site.

A little link love

Reporting on environmental issues in Turkey can be a lonely pursuit (and can sometimes feel like a lost cause), so it's always gratifying to have my work for TreeHugger.com cited by people I respect.

Writing about the resignation-under-pressure of a longtime Turkish columnist who had "railed against the Prime Minister and other government officials for their plan to build a series of controversial dams in a scenic part of northeastern Turkey," journalist Yigal Schleifer linked to one of my TreeHugger posts as context for the story:

On a related note, Jennifer Hattam of the TreeHugger blog has a great post up about just what is happening with the dam project that [columnist Oktay] Ekşi wrote about and why people are getting so fired up about the government's actions on the issue.

More recently, acclaimed Turkish environmentalist Çağan Şekercioğlu linked to my reports on his latest research in his own write-up for National Geographic NewsWatch.

Green blogging made easy

Blogging seemed like a slightly suspicious activity in the mid-2000s, at least to some of the higher-ups at the large environmental nonprofit where I used to work. They recoiled in horror at the thought of a few writers publishing unvetted words that the cantankerous masses could comment on with abandon. Resistance proved futile, though, and today there's nary an NGO (nor company, university, or knitting group) without at least one blog.

The challenge now is one of standing out in a sea of bloggers. For those with an environmental bent, the newly released ebook "Barefoot Bloggers: Write to Save the Planet" offers a primer on engaging, effective blogging, from basics such as how to register a domain and find news to tips on generating revenue and search-engine optimization to questions of ethics and safety.

Lead author Karin Kloosterman, the editor of the Mideast environmental news site Green Prophet, tapped me to write a chapter on blogging for NGOs. Other contributors talk about building a popular mainstream green blog, making the transition from print journalism to blogging, green tech blogging, and writing for religious audiences of various faiths.

Sound intriguing? Purchase a copy online and be on your way to better blogging.

Seeking sustainability in Turkey

Istanbul's bustling İstiklal Caddesi is chock-a-block with free art galleries sponsored by Turkey's biggest banks. The country's wealthiest families all have charitable foundations to go along with their gigantic, multi-industry holding companies. But is there such a thing as true corporate social responsibility in Turkey?

That's the question the sustainability consultancy One Stone set out to answer for a special country briefing on Turkey in the September 2011 issue of Ethical Corporation, recruiting me to contribute my local insight as an Istanbul-based correspondent. While other articles in the package looked at the need to move beyond philanthropy, the challenges facing leading companies, and the role of NGOs, I examined how the government and current legislation affect corporate responsibility. My conclusion? Turkish authorities, while making some promising steps, are missing the big picture.

Read my contribution to Ethical Corporation's Turkey briefing: jpg

Remembering an environmental hero

In the summer of 2003, I flew into Charleston, West Virginia, rented a car and drove deep into the state's mountain "hollows," deep green valleys where the land – and the people who lived on it – were badly scarred by mountaintop removal mining. I met people who had been barred from visiting their family cemeteries – now on mining company land; people with cracks in their walls and coal dust blanketing their homes due to nearby mining operations; and disabled former miners who said they would rather risk their lives underground each day than let their families and homes be subjected to the dangers of mountaintop removal.

My guide through this then-unfamiliar world was Judy Bonds, a former Pizza Hut waitress turned environmental activist who was one of the leaders of the grassroots opposition in the area to mountaintop removal mining, a campaign that was at the time largely a regional one, but today has become a national cause. I profiled her and her work for Sierra magazine, and have remained moved by my experience in West Virginia ever since.

This morning, I woke up to learn that Judy had lost her battle with cancer. A memorial will be held for her Jan. 15 at a location yet to be determined, but the online tributes are already pouring in. Rest in peace, Judy. May your fight continue.

Read my profile of Judy Bonds, "Dethroning King Coal," in the November/December 2003 issue of Sierra magazine.

Taking a regional view

Yesterday, the "Regionscape" editor for the Hürriyet Daily News ran across a post I'd written recently for TreeHugger about a reforestation effort in Armenia, Turkey's neighbor to the east, and asked to reprint it in the paper, where it appears in today's print edition. (TreeHugger maintains the online rights to the piece.) Unfortunately, I haven't yet had a chance to travel to Armenia to see the program in action first hand, but I hope to do so soon!

Boing!

A photo gallery I put together for TreeHugger got linked on the popular tech site Boing Boing yesterday. Photographer Mary Taffe was great to work with and her abstract images of pollution in the lake near her Minnesota home are both artistically striking and very sobering.

It's always gratifying to be able to help call attention to the local environmental battles that people are fighting across the world. Having that coverage get attention from my blogging peers is a nice bonus.

The cost of 'virtual water'

A presentation by Arjen Y. Hoekstra of the Water Footprint Network was one of the most interesting I heard at the World Water Forum this spring, prompting all sorts of questions about water footprints vs. carbon footprints and when it might not be best to produce goods locally – subjects that I could barely give a glancing look in a short news piece for the latest issue of Sierra. Working on it certainly piqued my interest in the topic further; hope it does the same for readers.

Read my article on water footprints, "Fluid Measures," in the July/August 2009 issue of Sierra magazine.

World Water Forum in Istanbul

I spent the past week at the 5th World Water Forum, held here in Istanbul this year, attending sessions on traditional cultural uses of water, migration and conflict, and women's issues, among other topics that jumped out from the thick catalog of panels and presentations.

It was a productive week, as I filed daily dispatches from the conference for TreeHugger.com and wrote my first piece for The National, an excellent English-language newspaper based in Abu Dhabi.

My complete conference coverage for TreeHugger:

• Day 1: What is this 'Big Water Meeting'?

• Day 2: Linking Water, Conflict, Gender, and Migration

• Day 3: Accounting for Every Drop

• Day 4: Images of Inundation

• Day 5: Understanding the Sacred Value of Water

• Day 6: 'Another Water Management is Possible'

• Day 7: Is Water a 'Right' or a 'Need'?

UPDATE: This coverage is no longer available online. You can read the text of the article I wrote for The National below.

- - - - -

Water scarcity harder on women

Supply a problem

Women and girls best-suited to spearhead conservation efforts

Jennifer Hattam

ISTANBUL // In the rural areas near Edéa, Cameroon, women leave home before dawn, walking for two or three hours to fetch water, a journey they make again each evening. Carrying the heavy loads on their heads, and sometimes their babies on their backs, they endure searing heat and difficult terrain.

“Our country is so hot, and sometimes the roads are slippery,” said Ndjebet Cécile.

“Women have to go over hills and through forests, where they sometimes get bitten by snakes.” Girls often make the trip too, arriving late to school if they get there at all.

In the Congo, and other conflict areas, it is not snakebites women fear as they trek along the deserted roads in search of water, but rape from marauding rebels.

Women in towns lucky enough to have public water pumps face fewer dangers, but save little, if any, time.

“I see them queuing for hours, from five in the morning to 10 at night,” Cécile said.

“There are not enough pumps, so women come from all over.”

Reema Walia, a masters student at the University of Pennsylvania, has calculated that 150 million work days and 10 billion rupees (about $200 million) are lost annually in India because women must walk up to nine kilometers each day to get water.

Water is a universal need and right, but traditional cultural roles mean that the lack of it affects women and girls more severely than men.

Women have traditionally been the caretakers of water, they collect it, cook with it and bathe children with it, and subsequently deal with the consequences of those who become sick through consuming dirty water.

With water scarcity becoming an ever more urgent issue – the UN says nearly half of the world’s population will be living in areas of acute water shortage by 2030 – the role of water in protecting and managing the resources has taken center stage.

At the World Water Forum in Istanbul this week, where more than 20,000 people gathered to discuss the looming crisis, women were tapped as one of nine major groups crucial to the conservation of water.

“We are talking about survival in a crisis situation,” said Kusum Athukorala, the chair of NetWwater Sri Lanka, a women’s organization. “Women could be agents of change if they are allowed to reach their potential.”

In many countries, that possibility still seems remote.

In rural areas of Turkey, for example, traditional agriculture is usually carried out by women—in the Aegean region, 75 to 80 percent of people working in agriculture are female—but they generally lack decision-making power, often working as unpaid family labor.

The situation is similar in Sri Lanka, where “women have a traditionally defined support role in paddy farming,” said Badra Kamaladasa, an irrigation engineer.

Diminishing water supplies have reduced agricultural productivity, forcing men to leave their villages to try to find work in urban areas.

“Women are now assuming heavier duties, preparing the land for harvest, and sharing in the family economic burden,” said Kamaladasa. “But men still own the land and make the decisions.”

The forum was also expected to promote investment in improving water supplies, but critics said this was tantamount to selling water to the highest bidder and would have an adverse effect on the poor. They are calling for more public-sector investment.

“Privatization raises prices, leaving women to carry out their household responsibilities with less, or less clean, water,” said Monika Schierenberg with the German environmental group EcoMujer.

“It is only possible to solve the problems if you accept access to water as a human right that cannot be sold. The World Water Forum does not.”

Members of EcoMujer and other international non-governmental organizations were in Istanbul this week too, a few to attend the water forum, but most to organize protests and participate in the Alternative Water Forum being held this weekend just down the road from the big event.

Some 300 people protesting outside the World Water Forum venue on its opening day on Monday were blasted with water cannons and tear gas.

At the opening ceremony a few hours later, two protesters working for International Rivers held up a banner reading “No Risky Dams.” They were detained, and promptly deported.

Dams are a sensitive issue in the forum’s host country, Turkey. In his opening-day speech, Veysel Eroğlu, the environment and forestry minister, called building dams “an absolute necessity” for Turkey.

But the 1.2 billion-euro (Dh 5.7bn) Ilısu Dam project on the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey is the subject of much controversy, as it would submerge part of the ancient town of Hasankeyf and force relocations.

Women forced to migrate as a result of dams often fare poorly, possessing few of the skills necessary to cope with city living.

Many urban areas in developing countries have acute sanitation and hygiene problems.

Though problematic to everyone, such conditions again hit women especially hard.

Women need more water for personal hygiene; spend more time doing washing and bathing, increasing exposure to contaminated water. The lack of sanitation has other, less obvious, effects too.

According to a report sponsored by UNICEF and the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA), more than 50 percent of girls in rural Pakistan drop out because their schools lack proper toilets.

Girls in rural Tajikistan skip class when they are menstruating, for the same reasons.

“Sometimes parents don’t allow girls to go to school if there are no private facilities,” says Mariet Verhoef-Cohen, president of Soroptimist International of Europe (SI/E).

“Sanitation blocks” sponsored by SI/E in rural Ghana and in Nairobi slums provide one solution, containing private toilet and shower facilities with safe water sources, sometimes even a place to do laundry, and generating cleaning and administrative jobs for women.

They are often also a place for women to learn about hygiene and sanitation, knowledge that they take home to their families.

While such projects show the importance of considering women’s special water-related needs, others tap their unique knowledge and skills. The UNICEF/GWA report gives a telling example from Tanzania, where a new well created by an aid agency quickly dried up.

Follow-up visits to the village revealed that the committee that determined the location of the well had been comprised only of men, though women are usually the ones digging by hand for water in scarce conditions – and thus the ones who know where the most water flows.

Women have been shown to be better water caretakers than men, and, when given the tools, able to transfer their household-management skills to the community level.

“Women are suffering too much to get water, so they care very much how it is used,” said Cécile. “They know, ‘If I misuse it, I have to go back and fetch more.’”

Originally published in The National, 21 March 2009

Green amid the grime

Though it would be premature to call Istanbul an "eco-city," there are plenty of green discoveries waiting to be made amidst the urban sprawl. I sought out organic markets with friendly farmers, vegetarian restaurants, public-transportation options, parks, running groups, and eco-friendly souvenirs for a PlanetGreen.com "Green City Guide" to my adopted home.

UPDATE: This article is no longer available online. Read my "Green City Guide: Istanbul" as a jpg or download as a pdf.