By Sofia Manukyan

When one thinks of a context where Turkey and Armenia are both involved, one immediately concentrates on politics, history, closed borders and the absence of diplomatic ties.

Some may go further and think about cultural, linguistic similarities. However, hardly anyone goes as far as to think about policies in the energy sector; policies that often negatively impact the environment, cultural heritage and human rights in both countries.

Meanwhile, the environment, unlike states, recognizes no borders and therefore any deterioration in one place is a regional if not a global threat. Therefore, my research - conducted from October 2014 until May 2015 -  sought to look at the official policies of Armenia and Turkey in the energy and natural resource sectors and find out how these policies impact the environment, and human rights, of the local populations. The research was implemented as part of the Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme established by Hrant Dink Foundation within the scope of the programme “Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process” financed by the European Union.  The research was prepared at Human Rights Law Research Centre of Istanbul’s Bilgi University.  

Clearly, Armenia and Turkey are neither geographically nor demographically comparable, however, as it turns out, policies in the energy and natural resource sector are what matter and these are pretty similar in both countries. 

Energy and natural resources play a key role in the development plans of both Turkey and Armenia.  National strategies, regulations and policies are therefore adopted in these sectors as key contributors to the states’ development plans, with the goal to merge a rise in the quality of lives of people with least degree of environmental harm. Sustainability is therefore central in these plans, with a particular stress on developing renewable sources.  However, in practice both governments have favored investments in more conventional energy and natural resource sectors, resulting in a costly impact on the environment, the health of local residents and overall standards of living in the region.  Such practices have not only contradicted official policies of the two states, but have also led to a violation of a set of human rights recognized by both countries.  

For example, one of the common problems in Turkey and Armenia is the mishandling of environmental impact assessments (EIA). In 2014 an amended version of EIA regulations entered into force in Turkey. Some positive amendments included public accessibility of the EIA report and the possibility for public intervention during the preparation of the EIA and not after its finalization as  was the case before. However, the amended EIA exempted a number of big projects from the EIA reports, including hydroelectric power plants with a capacity of/under 10MWm, water projects with capacity less than 100 million m³/year, dams and small lakes with capacity under 10 million m³/year, projects for reconstruction of agricultural lands, as well as projects for transformation of forest areas for other purposes.

Another drawback negatively affecting the environment and local livelihoods has been the so-called “rapid expropriation” or “immediate expropriation” law, adopted in Turkey in 2011, under which immediate seizure of target property is authorized for the use of public good. This criterion has been frequently abused as this law has resulted in the expropriation of large amounts of land for use by energy companies without regard to the value of these lands in terms of the environment or local history.  The number of cases of rapid expropriation has grown from eleven in 2011 to 250 in 2013.

In Armenia too, the EIA has often been just a formality. Natural resources are exploited, while the public have limited access to information. The new law on the EIA, adopted in 2014, threatens to further complicate public participation in the decision-making process linked to environment and livelihoods, as it fails to simplify the processes of environmental impact assessment and public participation mechanisms, as well as to clearly identify the specific actors responsible for ensuring public participation. The pressure from  investors (sometimes local political figures)  undermines the adequacy of environmental inspections. The EIAs prepared for projects are often a disguise, since many EIAs are not comprehensive and do not cover all environmental concerns of the projects.

Poor working conditions, especially in the mining sector, is something else shared by Armenia and Turkey. Whether it is unsafe conditions or unpaid wages as in case of Ermenek or Soma mines in Turkey in 2014, or the 2015 firing of thirteen employees of  the Akhtala Mine-Enrichment Plant in Armenia after they signed  a petition demanding   better working conditions and higher salaries,  the respect for human rights, in both countries, is being trumped by profits and the interests of the few.   

Individuals and communities both in Turkey and Armenia also often have to confront private interests that impair their right to decent wages and a decent life for them and their families. This has been the case in 15 provinces in Turkey, where decisions to expropriate lands for energy projects meant the destruction of olive groves. This has been a concern not only for producers and the olive industry, but also for local communities who are deprived of their income, as in the case of Yirca, a village in Turkey’s Manisa province. In 2014,  local residents protested against the decision to construct a thermal power plant in an area where they had cultivated thousands of olive trees for years. Hydropower plants, in turn, pose challenges for gaining one’s living through farming in Armenia as these plants exhaust irrigation water.  Especially in summer, the operation of hydropower plants is problematic since water tends to evaporate in small rivers, thus  threatening  local economies.  Villagers in Marts, a village in Armenia’s  Lori Province, for example, opposed the construction of a small hydropower back in 2013, expressing concerns that the latter would leave around 30 hectares of forage area dry and the livestock without hay, while at the same time endangering their orchards.

Cultural heritage as well has often been threatened due to energy projects in both countries. Estimates say that Turkey’s Ilisu Dam hydropower project, located on the  Tigris River, will create a reservoir of 313 square kilometres. It threatens to submerge around 300 archaeological sites including the 12,000 year-old Mesopotamian town of Hasankeyf.

Mining projects  pose a threat to Armenia’s cultural heritage of Armenia. The extraction of copper and molybdenum in the forest of Teghout, not only poses huge environmental risks, but also threatens the preservation of historical sites dating back to Bronze Age. (Another historical site here is the medieval church in Kharatadzor which, according to the mining project, will be submerged under the tailings dam.

Obviously, my research contains much more detailed information on regulations, official policies and practices in the energy and natural resources sector in Armenia and Turkey as of May 2015.  Concurrent with their rhetoric regarding sustainability, my research presents the outcomes of activities in this sector -  activities which have negatively affected human development and nature preservation.  The objective of this work, therefore, is to expose the set of human rights violated as a result of the disconnect between Armenia’s and Turkey’s policies and actions in the sector of energy and natural resources.  For the full study, click Here.

P.S. Due to undemocratic processes unfolding in Turkey,  resulting in huge pressures on freedom of speech and information, the former opposition newspaper Today’s Zaman was forced to delete all its archives. The newspaper was singled out due to its coverage of Turkish government’s link to the terrorist group ISIS. As a result, most of the sources used in this research paper that were taken from the English version of Today’s Zaman are no longer available. However, one can still find the necessary information from other online newspapers by searching the title mentioned in the footnotes via Google Search.

Top photo: Yeghegis River small hydropower plant - Armenia; Deriner Dam - Turkey (1^st photo courtesy of Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project; 2^nd photo ©Sofia Manukyan)

Sofia Manukyan specializes in the field of business and human rights, and advocates for responsible business practices by assisting businesses in implementing various policies and guidelines, including more familiar regulations established by the Corporate Social Responsibility model, as well as more advanced guidelines specifically in human rights adopted by the United Nations.