Digging Deep.

The bulldozers have now left our bit of forest and we've had a few days of peace, but we are very aware that our quiet existence could end any time despite the promises of the forestry department.  Hopefully, any company might think twice before they try to redevelop this bit of nature: our village has a badass reputation to live up to. In late 1995, sitting on the terrace as the sun went down, we noticed that all the trees around our garden had red crosses on them. Hubby went off to the village to see what was going on and came back with gut-wrenching news.  A cement company had leased the forest behind the village and was going to cut down all the trees and strip-mine the whole area for dolomite. The access road to the mine was going to go around our house.  There had been no warning of this, no planning meetings, no surveys and not one member of the village had been consulted. The owner of the cement company had a relative in parliament and the mine was a done deal.  The first company men started to arrive in their jeeps, swaggering around as if they owned the place and got their first surprise - a volley of rocks. Jumping back into their vehicles, they sped off.  The owners turned up to negotiate. They would pave a village road - the villagers were not interested. A new school was offered - who would want to bring up their children in a mine?  The Turkish Green Party leader, Bilge Contepe,  and the most effective local environmental activist, Saynur Gelendost got involved and found us a wonderful  young lawyer Nurcan Akça who suggested we commission an environmental survey to see if we had any endangered flora or fauna. On a local level, we were busy painting banners and involving radio, TV and newspapers and collecting stashes of large rocks at each end of the village to dissuade any one heading for the forest. (I offer a belated apology on behalf of the village to the Bodrum motor cross club who, choosing the wrong day to ride through, must have wondered what they'd done to deserve a pelting of rocks by a group of very angry headscarved ladies) Semkay

A group of women wound themselves in the cloth used to wrap corpses and tied themselves to trees. The protest continued all winter until the inevitable confrontation happened in April 1996. The company enlisted the jandarme to protect them as they tried to bring their equipment into the village. The main road was blocked with petrol-soaked tree trunks and the whole village turned out to face the military police. We put the children in the mosque for safety and the women stood at the front facing the armed jandarmes. Shots were fired and arrests made, and finally the soldiers forced their way through. Six villagers spent 56 days in gaol but the rock throwing  and disruption continued. 

Eventually the environmental report found rare plants in the forest above the village which gave the lawyer a reason to open a court case to stop the mine.  Finally realising just how much they had underestimated the resolve of the villagers and tiring of the sabotage and constant difficulties in getting to the mine, the company found another village who fell for their bribes and left us in peace, although it was 4 more years before the mining licence was revoked in court.
Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures but they are firmly stuck in my album so I had to photograph them rather than scan.