Bekir Pakdemirli

Turkish authorities have started a drive to protect stray and wild animals from heavy snowfall and storms that have lasted for nearly a week and severely affected life across the country.

Several public institutions and municipalities supplemented the wildlife with food to prevent the species that have been suffering from food shortages from starving in harsh winter conditions.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Ashgabat on Nov. 27 to pay an official visit and attend the 15th Summit of Heads of Member States of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) at the invitation of Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

Rising global temperatures and the expected increase in the frequency of droughts from every 10 years to every five years pose a grave threat to food security in the world, the head of the International Association of Operative Millers (IAOM) Eurasia warned on Nov. 12.

Mussels will be used in line with a massive cleanup campaign launched by authorities to eliminate the problem of mucilage that has severely threatened the marine biome of the Marmara Sea, a senior official has said.

Turkey is aiming to modernize its irrigation systems and agriculture in line with the country's water policy, said the country's forestry and agriculture minister on Sept. 14. 

Water use in agriculture is being rearranged in order to reduce the negative effects of climate change and drought, a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry quoted Bekir Pakdemirli as saying.

Turkey's Agriculture and Forestry Ministry announced on late Sept. 1 that the country will be buying five firefighting planes, which were subject to discussions amid wildfires that broke out all at the same time late July and devastated some 53 provinces out of 81.

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Members of civil defence organisation evacuate people in areas hit by floods in northern Turkey. Photo: Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate, AFAD.

Floods have brought chaos to the northern provinces of Kastamonu, Sinop and Bartın, from where thousands of people were evacuated by helicopters. Searches for the missing continue. The death toll is expected to rise.

As many as 274 forest fires in Turkey have been brought under control while one continues to burn in the Aegean province of Muğla, the country's agriculture and forestry minister said on Aug. 10. 

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Hills near the Turkish sea resort of Marmaris were once decked in a thick green pine forest until wildfires took the region in its grip, leaving the same hills looking like a ghostly, grey-brown landscape topped with blackened tree stumps as though sketched in charcoal.

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Turkey will send two aircraft to Greece in a bid to support its neighbor's efforts in tackling the devastating wildfires that have erupted across the country for the past week.

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Ankara will provide aircraft to Greece as forest fires in Turkey have mostly been brought under control, the agriculture and forestry minister said on Aug. 9.