Damage to rare plants punished in Turkey

BAYBURT

The plants of “Stachys Bayburtensis” and “Silene Bayburtensis,” which are grown only in the Black Sea province of Bayburt, have been taken under protection and people found guilty of damaging them will be fined according to the Environment Law. 

Alparslan Katırcı, the provincial director of Nature Protection and National Parks in Bayburt, said the Bayburt leg of the National Biodiversity Inventory and Monitoring Project, carried out by the directorate throughout the country, was completed at the end of last year. 

Before the project, the number of plant species in Bayburt was 410 but increased to 539 as a result of the two-year project, Katırıcı said. 

He added that 62 of these species were endemic plants and the plants of “Stachys Bayburtensis” and “Silene Bayburtensis” were local endemics that existed only in Bayburt in the world. 

“Bayburt’s Kop Mountain is one of the most important butterfly fields in Turkey. It has nearly 134 species of butterfly but the endangered ‘Stachys Bayburtensis’ are what makes this field so important,” Katırıcı said. 

“The ‘Stachys Bayburtensis’ was discovered by a foreign academic and has been seen only on Kop Mountain. We should protect it as it is a rare and endangered species,” he added. 

The plant blossoms between June and July and those who damage it are fined 48,625 liras.