Water birds return to improved reeds

ANKARA

Maintenance and improvement works in the Central Anatolian province of Konya’s Ereğli Reeds, which is known as one of the natural habitats of flamingos and has experienced drought in the past years, have been completed.

The maintenance of the reeds has been completed, the basin has started to hold water and thousands of water birds have returned to Turkey, according to Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli.

Pakdemirli replied to the written proposal of main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Antalya lawmaker Aydın Özer about the fate of wetlands in the southwest of Turkey, known as the “Lakes Region.”

Pakdemirli emphasized that the related lakes’ water level decreased as a result of the local people consuming the water resources unplanned and illegally.

“Wetlands, which are fed only by rainwater due to climate change, which can be considered small in terms of area, dry up temporarily in low rainfalls, but can regain wetland characteristics in years when rain is abundant,” Pakdemirli said.

“One of these areas, Ereğli Reeds, has been restored and retained water, and thousands of water birds have returned,” he added.

Nearly 80 percent of the Ereğli Reeds, which are a Class A wetland in line with the Ramsar Convention, were dried within the framework of the program to combat malaria and obtain agricultural land.