Fishermen asked to pay fee for ‘fishing in dried lake’

MANİSA

A group of fishermen in the Aegean province of Manisa has reacted strongly to local authorities on being asked to pay an occupancy fee of 391,000 Turkish Liras ($28,670) for using the Marmara Lake, which dried up three years ago.

“They are asking a fee for fish that don’t exist anymore,” Rafet Keser, one of the fishermen in the region, told daily Milliyet on Feb. 16.

Once one of the country’s 184 important bird areas, the Marmara Lake dried up totally in August 2019 following a decade of underground and surface water overuse.

Keser, who is also a board member of the Lake Marmara Aquaculture Cooperative, is one of the local fishermen who could not fish on the lake since then.

“The lake is gone, the nature is demolishing, and we are out of fish,” he said.

What surprised him was the occupancy fee the Provincial Directorate of Agriculture wanted from the cooperative’s members for “using the lake for fishing.”

“They want the fee for 2020 and 2021,” he said, asking authorities to wipe off the debt.

Tuba Kılıç Karcı, the head of the Nature Society, pointed out a plan to reform the lake.

“The lake’s main water source is the Gördes Creek. But the Gördes Dam holds the waters to flow,” she said. “Water from the Gördes Dam and the Ahmetli Stream must be released to reform the Marmara Lake,” she added.