Trees cut down for ‘industrial use,’ not for Sinop nuclear power plant: Minister

ANKARA

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez has said trees were not cut down for a nuclear power plant project which is planned to be built in the Black Sea province of Sinop, but were cut for “industrial use.”

“This project site is considered an industrial forest. Obsolete lands are being razed to meet the raw material needs of our country. Trees were cut down, not for this project, but rather for industrial purposes,” Dönmez said in his response to a parliamentary question submitted by Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Murat Çepni.

“The planned project’s impacts on the lands, protected under the Bern Convention, and precautions to be taken will have a place in the Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIA), which is currently being prepared,” Dönmez added.

“There are nuclear power plants close to nature protection zones all over the world,” the minister said.

“Nuclear power plants do not cause emission. Hence, they do not have a negative impact on cultivated areas or the vegetation,” he said.

In his parliamentary inquiry, Çepni had said more than 650,000 trees were cut down for the planned nuclear power plant on Sinop’s İnceburun peninsula and the site was posing a threat to the society by putting living spaces in danger and creating ecological damages.

The Sinop nuclear power plant is a planned nuclear plant located on the Black Sea coast in northern Turkey. It will be the country’s second nuclear power plant after the projected Akkuyu nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean coast.