Turkey has struggled with intense fire in the summer and is preparing to enter the Guinness record book through planting sapling in the autumn.
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli announced that there is a project to enter the Guinness record book through planting 3 million saplings in various regions together with İzmir, Muğla and Fethiye in November. He said, "I would like to invite all of my citizens to plant seedlings in the provinces that we will announce later to enter the Guinness records book on November 11 at 11.00".
With the record attempt on Noverber 11, it is aimed to plant 3 million seedlings at once, while afforestation works will be carried out in the burning areas throughout the summer and our Ministry will continue to work with the aim of increasing the forest areas which are the power of a country.
4.5 BILLION SAPLINGS HAVE MET SOIL IN 16 YEARS
In our country, which is quite successful in the fight against forest fires, the shorter response time of the fire prevents the major disasters. The initial response time to fire in 2003 was 40 minutes. In 2018, it was reduced to 14 minutes. The current target is 12 minutes.
In the last 10 years, 66 thousand 648 hectares of land were damaged by fire in Turkey. After the fires, 75.044.830 saplings were planted in these areas.
In this period, 8 percent of the fires were man-made and 12 percent are natural fires.
In the last 16 years; we increased our forest area from 20.8 million hectares in 2002 to 22.6 million hectares in 2018. This 16 year period, as well as the burning area afforestation activities across Turkey, 4.5 billion seedlings were introduced soils.
Only 256 million saplings have been planted even in the last year of our Minister.
TARGET 2023; MEETING 7 BILLION SAPLING TO THE SOIL
After China and India, our country is the third most afforesting country in the world. The 2023 target of forest assets is to bring 7 billion saplings to the soil.