The Tourism Incentives Law of 1982, amended in 1993, was enacted for encouraging, guiding and regulating tourism development, most of which takes place in coastal areas. The Council of Ministers can declare ‘tourism regions, areas and centres’ and all state land in these areas is given to the disposal of the Ministry of Tourism, which can also expropriate private land (Kuntalp 1991:76). There were various financial incentives for developers included in the law which has resulted in a significant increase in frequently inappropriate tourism development with adverse impacts on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts.
Besides these main laws a significant number of laws deal with protection and conservation issues; such as the Environmental Law for policy making on environmental issues, inventories, planning, monitoring and prevention of pollution; by-law on Water Pollution Control for protecting coastal water quality; by-law on Environmental Impact Assessment for protecting the coastal and sea resources in general; The National Parks Law, the Law for Protection of Cultural and National Wealth, The Harbours Law for administration of harbours, pollution control, organisation of the naval traffic and its security, the Fisheries Law for protection and supervision services for production in the fishery sector (Gozubuyuk 1999:104).
Although legislation should establish certain general principles in coastal management and facilitate collaboration and co-operation between levels of government and sectors, the current situation is very different in Turkey since there is neither a law that covers all respects related to coastal zones nor a special institutional structure for this purpose, various organisations such as The Ministry of Environment, The Ministry of Health, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Ministry of Tourism, The Ministry of Interior (Coast Guards), The Ministry of Transport, The Undersecretariat of Maritime Affairs, Coastal Safety and Salvage Administration are responsible in coastal zones. As a result, the authorities are overlapping in some respects and due to disorder and multiplicity in institutional structure there is both a lack of horizontal co-ordination and integration between ministries at the national level and of vertical integration between national government and local municipalities to facilitate management of coastal areas. There is also a lack of integration at the local level between all the conflicting sectors with different government departments being responsible for each issue. So, it is possible to claim that the coastal management is far from being effective, sufficient and functional in Turkey. Thus, for increasing performance in coastal management, the government should adopt medium and long-term strategies and policies, provide clear definition of authority, division of labour and responsibilities, improve the quality of administrators and workers, benefit extensively from information and communication technologies.
After giving this general picture; now we can evaluate the problems related to coastal legislation and management more closely. The Shore Law provides definitions of the shore and the shoreline. The shoreline is defined as “ the line along which water touches the land at the shores of the seas, natural or artificial lakes and rivers, excluding the inundation periods ”. The shore edge line is defined as “the natural limit of sand and gravel beaches, rock, boulder, marsh, wetland and similar areas which are created by water motions in the direction of land starting from the shoreline” (Kuntalp 1999:89). Whilst it is important to delineate the shore edge line in order to manage coastal development; the definition is far from being clear and exact making delimitation of setback lines practically contentious, which are useful planning mechanisms to control development along the coastline.
The shore strip must have a minimum width of 100 metres, starting from the shore edge line. In the first 50 metres of the shore strip, no building is allowed, apart from those that are exempt due to a coastal location being required and having planning permission. This area must be planned and used for public access and recreational purposes. In the remaining 50 metres (or more) roads, recreational and tourism facilities (other than hotels) open for public access and public waste treatment plants are allowed subject to planning permits (Gozubuyuk 1999). But in areas with variable topography such a rigid distance line is environmentally meaningless and may complicate sustainable management of the hydrology of coastal zones by cutting across naturally functioning systems. Moreover, many municipalities have a very lenient attitude to exemptions if it will promote local economic development.
For instance; The Konyaalti-Antalya coastal area is an important tourism area but recently has experienced a large number of conflicting land-use activities. Adjacent to the shore, there is a large gravel and rock quarry, petrol storage and filling installation, a main highway running along the coast, a ferrochromium and cement storage area, a free trade zone and sea port, a planned waste water treatment plan and many high rise buildings for both residential and tourism use. Despite the fact that there is a 100-meter setback line, planning permission is still being granted for further building just a few metres from the shore. Similarly, permission has also been granted for the construction of an ugly multi-story hotel on the Antalya coastal area. This permission is provided by the Ministry of Tourism who designated the area as a ‘tourism area’ according to the Tourism Incentive Law of 1982, amended in 1993. So, it is possible to conclude that laws concerning coastal areas are predominantly sectoral and have frequently been drawn up in isolation from each other. And terrestrially based land use planning in the coastal zone makes marine/terrestrial integration in planning and management very complex to achieve, after involving many responsible authorities.
Besides these national laws Turkey is a party to a major number of global and regional international conventions such as The Rio de Janeiro Convention with its ‘Agenda 21’, The Barcelona Convention, The Ramsar Convention and for the Black Sea Region The Bucharest Convention. However, up to date the harmonisation of all laws and regulations directly or indirectly related to integrated coastal zone management and particularly Coast and Environment Laws with these international legislation and arrangements has not been completed and enforced. And so, Turkey still does not have a specific national regulation for the integrated coastal zone management and it makes difficult to achieve the conservation and sustainable use of the coastal zone. Hence, Turkey should identify and enforce the national policies and objectives for integrated coastal zone management soon enough to solve the problems related to coastal areas. On the other hand, she should take into consideration the fact that one of the most important criteria for the EU accession process is the environment legislation and its enforcement (8th Five-Year Development Plan 2000).
In Turkey, The State Planning Organisation prepares strategies for development; the development plans which are accepted as the basic instruments of government policies in economic and social issues and SPO has included environmental issues in its development plans since the Third Five Year Development Plan, which covered the period 1973-1977. But up to date in all plans the coastal problems and policies for solving these problems have not been identified clearly and seriously enough (Arapkirlioglu 2000: 178).
In Turkey there is not an institutional organisation or ministry charged with co-ordinating all national and international activities concerning coastal areas but we should mention about the Ministry of Environment that mainly considers sustainable development and environmental management issues and is charged with co-ordinating all national and international activities concerning water resources. Because of the need shoreline management plans should be integrated with the work of local planning authorities, in May 1997 the Environmental and Coastal Management Agency was established by the
Ministry of Environment and charged with preparation, implementation and evaluation of
environmental management plans at national, regional and local level. In addition, increasing coastal zone problems made necessary the establishment of some units for coastal zones at the central level. For this reason, The Coastal Inventory Agency in Ministry of Public Works and Housing was created and charged with determining the coastal shoreline and developing inventories with regard to the implementation of coastal law. Besides these institutions, there is Coast Guard Command which is a security service, established on July 1982 by Act.2692, with the purpose of performing missions such as; providing the security of coasts, territorial waters and inland waters, ports and harbours, exercising such rights and powers where Turkey exercises sovereign rights under the rules of both national and international laws at sea areas which fall outside the scope of the general responsibility of the Turkish Naval Forces and to prevent all kinds of smuggling carried out by way of sea (Kuntalp 1991:53).
In this point we should mention about the increased shipping traffic through the narrow Boshporus Straits. Because of heightened fears of a major accident that could have serious environmental consequences and endanger the health of the 12 million residents of Istanbul that live on either side of the Straits; Turkey passed regulations requiring ships carrying hazardous materials to report to the Turkish Ministry Of Environment. However, Turkey’s power to regulate commercial shipping through the Straits is limited by the 1936 Treaty of Montreux that delineates the Straits as an international waterway. Although subsequent international agreements have given Turkey the right to regulate the right of passage through the Straits to ensure a steady and safe flow of traffic, due to pressure from some Black Sea border countries, Turkey has not been stringently enforcing the shipping laws passed in 1994. Thus, only a small number of vessels passing through the straits report their cargo. In this regard, Turkey tries to produce alternative policies to prevent Turkish Straits to become a major oil transport route, owing to the risk to the population and the deterioration of maritime safety in the event of increased traffic.
In conclusion, coastal zone management is a resource management process for a sustainable development in coastal regions and it requires the use of multiple instruments, including a mix of law, economic instruments, voluntary agreements, information provision, technological solutions, research and education. As it can be seen from the Turkey example; it is not effective unless it is supported by all levels of administration; as well as by all of the relevant sectoral branches of administration.
The very degraded environmental condition of coastal waters in Turkey is the result of inadequate sanitary infrastructure, rapid urban and industrial growth, booming tourism, expanding agriculture and increasing maritime traffic. On coastal region in Turkey; sea and water pollution, contradictions and insufficiencies in legal arrangements, coastal erosions, filling the coasts for aiming to get property, uncontrolled urbanization, insufficient service appear, the filling to obtain land parts violate the public benefit (Geray 1996).
In Turkey, local organisations are weaker than central organisations. There are deficiencies in local administrations and in local organisations of the central government, especially with regard to decision-making, budgeting, getting financial aid and due to insufficient staff, budgets, information, equipment local authorities can not tackle many local coastal area problems. Also, there is a lack of co-ordination between local organisations for example municipalities which are along the same coastal area have different planning approaches and this case prevents integrated planning of coastal areas. Whereas; coastal regions have to be undertaken as a whole because of covering both land and sea.
Furthermore, due to insufficiencies and conflicts in legal arrangements; serious problems happen in implementation. For instance although The Undersecretariat of Maritime Affairs is charged with monitoring and taking precautions to prevent the marine pollution; the provincial governors who do not have any technical information are authorized for giving penalties. Also, legal regulations change very rapidly and this prevents the consistent management of coastal areas.
There is another set of problems about public participation. Because legal mechanisms with regard to public participation and access to information are not sufficient. Legal arrangements provide limited possibility to the public to participate in few areas and hence, the planning, implementation and evaluation of policies and projects are less effective and more costly in Turkey (Sesli 2003).
For the reasons mentioned above; the main aims of the Turkish coastal policy should be to redefine planning hierarchies, responsibilities and authorities to integrate an ecological perspective into planning practises and to strengthen planning instruments by amending the Land Use and Development Law. The Coastal Law should be amended and this amendment should take into account topographic conditions, natural resources and cover all integrated coastal zone management issues. Also, a coast fund that is consisted of penalties and taxes taken from the services in the coastal areas can be established.
Finally, there should be some innovations in the organisation to provide better services and make the management more effective. In this regard, besides a ministry, which is responsible for all the activities concerning coastal areas, regional administration units should be established. In addition, information technologies such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS) and Internet for analyzing and querying functions related to coastal areas must be used (Alkis 1997:25). With the helping of these technologies; the necessary information can be provided to use these areas for the public benefit and also to make the future-planning and decision-making better.
Thanks to these reforms and careful development plans that will be made by Turkish governments, in the future Turkey can solve its coastal area problems and get more effective and successful management and organisation in the coastal policy sector than now.
Word count: 2900 words, 26 paragraphs, and 266 lines.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alkis Z (1997) ‘Kiyi Yonetiminde Cografi Bilgi Sistemlerinin Onemi’ in Ozhan E (ed) Turkiye’nin Kiyi ve Deniz Alanlari 1.Ulusal Konferansi Bildiriler Kitabi Ankara: KAY pp120- 136
Arapkirlioglu K (2000) ‘Kiyi Yonetimleri ve Cevre Duyarli Planlama Yaklasimi’ in Ozhan E (ed) Turkiye’nin Kiyi ve Deniz Alanlari 3. Ulusal Konferansi Bildiriler Kitabi Ankara: KAY pp170-185
Geray Cevat (1996) ‘Kiyilarin Toplum Yararina Kullanilmasina Iliskin Sorunlara Genel Bakis’ Mimarlik 147(2) pp32-46
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Sesli, F A (2003) ‘ Monitoring Relations Between Coastline Cover and Land Ownership Via the Web: An Example From Black Sea’ Coastal Zone 34(1) pp46-54
State Planning Organization (1999) National Environment Action Plan Ankara: Devlet Maatbaasi (10124)
State Planning Organization (2001) 8th Five Year Development Plan (2001-2005) Ankara: Devlet Matbaasi (12300)
