KuzeyDoğa Derneği

KuzeyDoga Society was established on January 28, 2008 in the province of Kars. We are mainly interested in birds and their habitats, doing scientific research, organizing environmental education programmes for kids and youth, raising awareness among local people about nature, providing training and capacity development opportinities for youth, promoting nature friendly tourism activities and cooperating with local, national and international organizations for the nature protection of Kars, Igdir, Ardahan, Artvin and Agri provinces in north-eastern Turkey.
2008 was a banner year for the Kars-Igdir Bio-cultural Diversity Initiative. Our recently-founded local NGO, KuzeyDoga, gained international success and praise from the Turkish president by receiving the Whitley Gold Award from Princess Anne for our community-based conservation, restoration and ecotourism efforts at Lake Kuyucuk. This attention helped our conservation work and increased the local support. We became close partners with Kars and Igdir decision makers, and KuzeyDoga is now regarded as the leading environmental NGO based in the region.
Our biodiversity monitoring activities have documented the region’s important biodiversity. We continue to run the only bird research centers in eastern Turkey, an area the size of the UK. A total of 5251 birds belonging to 109 species were banded at Aras Station in 2008. We caught a swallow banded 7835 km away in the Republic of South Africa. This was a Turkey distance record. We also caught a willow warbler banded 2993 km away in Karelia, Russia and an 18.4 gram swallow we banded flew 5600 km from Igdir to the world’s most polluted city in Zambia. These data show the importance of the Aras River valley for migrating birds. A total of 1932 birds of 72 species, mainly shorebirds, swallows, sand martins and larks, were banded at Kuyucuk Station in 2008.
KuzeyDoga is now the key local partner in northeastern Turkey for national biodiversity monitoring efforts. We undertook the first surveys to monitor Turkey’s winter wetland bird populations in Kars and Igdir. Our surveys revealed that Turkey’s all four vulture species are found in large numbers near the 88 km Arpacay canyon, revealing It as an overlooked, but essential breeding and feeding area for vultures. We are working hard to study this sensitive and restricted-access border area and to get it protected.

In 2008, the KuzeyDoga team conducted ethnobotany surveys in the villages of Sarikamis, Selim, Arpacay and Akyaka districts in Kars, interviewed local villagers, recorded the uses of local plants, and collected plant samples to be identified scientifically.
Our environmental education activities reached thousands of people in Kars and Igdir, including over 1030 people visiting our Kars plant illustration exhibits alone. We had regular screenings of the footage of our environmental work and of other documentaries in villages and in schools. Together with the children, students, and villagers, we celebrated the major environmental days such as the World Migratory Bird Day, World Environment Day, World Biodiversity Day, and World Birdwatching Day with events in which hundreds of local people participated. Ertugrul Gunay, Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism became the first Turkish minister to participate in any World Birdwatching Day activity, which was also honored by the Kars governor and his directors.

Our ecotourism activities had a similar reach. We organized the three-day 1. Nature Festival of Kuyucuk, were over 410 people from five countries and 14 Turkish provinces participated. We coincided the festival with the World Birdwatching Day and had the privilege of hosting Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, adding to the national visibility of the festival and a surge in local pride regarding the lake’s importance. Our research and ecotourism activities led to over 800 visitors from 12 countries visiting Lake Kuyucuk. In addition, one person from Kuyucuk village is employed as a guard to protect the lake.
KuzeyDoga both organized and took part in key capacity-building activities. At our field stations, we taught hundreds of students about bird and wetland conservation, bird migrations and birdwatching. We organized a sustainable bio-cultural tourism workshop for Kuyucuk villagers. We organized two plant illustration courses in Kars, where 25 students were trained for a month and exhibited their 108 illustrations in two separate exhibits attended by over 1030 Kars citizens.

KuzeyDoga’s conservation, education and ecotourism activities were covered at least 25 times in the local press, 69 times in the national press, and 16 times in the International press during 2008. This generated tremendous local pride. All the coverage is archived on our regularly-updated, bilingual websites kuzeydoga.org and kuyucuk.org where we report on our activities and build a growing International conservation community.