08.03.2022 Fevzi Çondur, Board Chairman of Aydın Commodity Exchange, Made An Assessment of The Decision Issued Regarding The Use of Olive Fields For Mining Activities

Fevzi Çondur, Board Chairman of Aydın Commodity Exchange, made an assessment of the Regulation on the Amendment of the Mining Regulation published in the Official Gazette regarding the permit of mining activities in olive grove areas. 

Section 115 of the Mining Regulation, with the clause added to the article, the decision to allow mining activities in olive groves, to more olive groves for mining activities, to establish the area as olive groves as well as the olive groves that were moved and destroyed was met with public reaction.

Commenting on the regulation published in the Official Gazatte, Fevzi Çondur,  Board Chairman of Aydın Commodity Exchange, stated that olive production provides significant added value to our country's economy, especially the economy of our province, and stated that this decision published in the Official Gazette will negatively affect production. Stating that our province alone produces 11 percent of our country's table olive production, Çondur said, ''It is unacceptable to open olive groves, which provide a significant foreign currency return to the economy of our counrty, which is one of the most important livelihoods of our province, to the rain of mining companies. The regulation published in the Official Gazette stipulates that mining companies must commit to rehabilitating and restoring olive gloves after their activities, but centuries-old olive trees can not be cut down and destroyed olive trees can not be expected to return to their former state. With this regulation, the opening of olive areas to mining activities leads to decreased productivity in olive fields and even the end of the production. It is important to protect it in agricultural areas while the public interest is taken into account in energy production. Because the destruction of agricultural areas as a result of improper practices can lead to a food crisis in the future and cause irreversible consequences. At such a time when the world is facing a food crisis, we need to take more ownership of our country's agricultural products, especially in our lives which are our national wealth as a country, get rid of independence on the outside. Therefore, we demand that the regulation be stooped and that the fertile agricultural land of our country be protected from mining activities.''