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Faaliyet Raporu 2009

Annual Report 2009

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You can contribute KuzeyDoga Society's nature conservation, environmental education, wildlife research and community based eco-tourism projects.
 
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Nature Tourism

Objectives of the project

  • Being primarily bird watching tourism, determining ecotourism and nature sport potentials in Kars and neighboring cities
  • Finding young people who are interested in nature sports and educating them as a local guides who manages ecotourism
  • Attracting ecotourists to the region by advertising its wildlife and nature sport potentials

 

 

Ecotourism is the most rapidly growing subsection of tourism in the world. Because ecotourism aims to protect the nature, destruction of natural areas by hotels, commonly known problem in tourism is not observed in ecotourism. Although Turkey and Eastern Anatolia are very rich for their natural areas, the region couldn’t reclaims its true potential because the lack of ecotourism training and advertising, especially in Eastern Anatolia. However Turkey can be one of the most advanced and earning country in this subject. Each year many tourists come to Turkey by external resources for observing birds, plants, insects and other living beings in all around the Turkey, including Eastern Anatolia. Preventing natural and cultural destruction and brings much more income per individuals, ecotourism could be an important income alternative for areas which have very rich nature but economically weak like Kars, Ardahan, Iğdır, Artvin and Ağrı.

 

 

Birdwatching Tourism

Bird watchers are one of the best sources of ecotourism income because they are the biggest group of educated and have high income level ecotourists. Because of bird watchers ambition and resources, bird watching is growing rapidly and is a hope for many threatened natural areas around the world. Number of bird watchers in U.S.A. has been growing by %332 since 1983 and becomes the most rapidly growing nature activity in country. A bird watcher in U.S.A. has an average annual income of $50.000 and 1/3 of them has at least undergraduate degree. Having environmental consciousness and spending important amounts of money for bird’s makes bird watchers ideal ecotourists. Besides from contribution to country’s economy by the sales of typical products and services, independent bird watchers and bird watching tours hires local nature guides by paying sometimes as high as $200 in even low-income countries like Kenya and South Africa. 

Providing jobs over 800.000 peoples, bird watching spending was assumed over 23 billion dollars just in 1996. It is assumed that bird watchers brings 40 million dollars to 5 of the most important bird watching areas by spending 2,4 million dollars annually. A small town of Texas gains 2 million dollars from bird watchers in 6 week migration period, in U.K. the income of traditional 3 day long Rutland Water bird watching festival reaches to 3 million sterling. Bird watchers travel in other than tourist season or to areas that has no other touristic attraction. In 1999, it was calculated by Tourism Institute of Costa Rica, that %41 of 1 billion dollar tourism income came from bird watching in that year.

Turkey birdwatching tours 

Turkey is the riches country of Europe for breeding birds. Although that, there was no bird watching tour conducted by Turkey till 2005. Within the Kars Region Biodiversity Project, we started Turkey bird watching tours in 2005 with TEMA. With 8 nature lovers from U.S.A., Canada and U.K., in first tour that was directed by Turks we passed other foreign tours and beat the Turkey record by observing 276 species. Being a big step for Turkish ecotourism, this tour also the first one that made observations in Aktaş Lake in Ardahan, Çalı, Çıldır ve Kuyucuk Lakes in Kars and Aralık reed beds in Iğdır and stayed in Kars for the night. News about this tour and “Birders Guide to Turkey” paper which has been published in the Living Bird, most prestigious birding journal of U.S.A. made this cities world widely known birding spots. Organizing and managing this non-profit, 23 days long project, Dr. Çagan H. Şekercioğlu took no money and participants brings $30.000 (45.000 YTL) to TEMA and Turkish Economy. Success of this tour attracts both national and foreign tourism companies and number of Turkey based bird and other wildlife observation tours have increased. Ardahan, Iğdır ve Kars are in Turkey bird watching tour’s route now. 

Increasing numbers of Turkey based nature observation tours contributes to our national economy and helps the people of regions that has low average income and limited traditional tourism potential like Eastern Anatolia. Because of that, improving nature tourism in Kars and neighboring cities is one of our most important aims. Following the first bird watching tour’s route, bird watching tour organized by TEMA and Nature Society  passes trough project cities and stops over in Kars. Turkey’s first Raptor Migration Observation Tour, which is planned this year, will be in Artvin that is famous for its raptor migration for 4 days.

                                                    

Birding tour guide training 

Trained guides who will presents natural beauties and shows tourists around are requires for nature tourism. The greatest obstacle for bird and other wild living being observation tourism in our country is the lack of professional guides who can detect and correctly identify these living beings. There is a great lack of nature guidance in tourism schools in Turkey and there is also no education about identification of especially birds and other living beings. However in other countries, professional guides have very good incomes. For helping to get rid of this obstacle for nature tourism in Turkey, one of the most important objectives of our project is promoting bird watching in Kars and neighbouring cities and training bird guides. This education is not limited for students, it also includes local people. We hope that in North-eastern Anatolia, bird watching and bird tourism guidance will improve and by strictly protecting important bird areas of the region, these sites will gain reputation amongst both Turkish and international birders and income from bird watching tourism will rise.

Other nature sports 

Besides bird watching, north-eastern Anatolia is also very suitable for many other nature sports. For example, in Canada tourists will pay $500 for a day to observe brown bears in their natural habitat. Additionally Kars and neighbouring cities are very advantageous for their rich plant, butterfly and other living beings diversity and foreign nature lovers can come to Eastern Anatolia just to see plant and butterfly species. Besides wildlife, nature of the region is very suitable for nature sports that doesn’t require any facility and also doesn’t harm the nature. Some of the most important are; canoe, rafting, mountaineering, nature walks, rock and ice climbing, ski, tours with horses, cirit, ice fishing and mountain bicycle. Maybe the best advantage of Kars region is that international sportsmen didn’t discover the region between Artvin and Ağrı Mountain mostly. The most important objective of the nature tourism project is both nationally and internationally advertising the nature sport possibilities of the region and so attracting nature sportsmen to the region.