28 years ago when Hayrettin Karaca founded Turkey's first private arboretum, TEMA has emerged as an idea. Following this in 1992, Hayrettin Karaca, a UN Environment Award laureate, and Nihat Gökyiğit, one of the founding partners of Tekfen Holding, and the President of the Turkish-BDT Business Council, founded TEMA in order to prevent the loss of land. In order to introduce you to TEMA more closely and to raise our awareness on this issue, we had a pleasant interview with the TEMA Foundation Resource Development and Public Relations Department Manager, Yeşim BEYLA.
Could you please briefly tell us about yourself and the foundation of TEMA?
I have been with TEMA as the Resource Development and Public Relations Department Manager for 8 years. The birth of the TEMA idea is going back to 1980 when Hayrettin Karaca founded Turkey's best arboretum. Traveled all around Turkey to collect herbs, Hayrettin Karaca saw the size of the erosion problem, he decided to tell everyone about the importance of this problem, and have them comprehend the enormity. He founded TEMA with his close friend Nihat Gökyiğit. Since the leaders of the foundation are industrialists, the other founders turned out to be businessmen. Despite the magnificent list of Founder's Committee, TEMA is realized with quite modest conditions.
Our topic is erosion. That is, loss of soil. As a non-governmental organization, we aim to raise awareness in the public and mobilize them, and as a result of that form a significant and effective public opinion. In this regard, we are organizing trainings for all levels of people. In order to mobilize them, we have been developing organization works, several communication projects that supports these projects, and corporate responsibility projects.
How do we communicate our volunteers?
First of all, we are trying to utilize all technological opportunities. We send text messages, we use the mailing system and e-mailing all our registered volunteers our news, our announcements, and bulletins. Again, we have created volunteer forms and payment platforms on our website for those who want to volunteer. They can easily reach us from there. They get to choose the areas they want to volunteer in, and start serving as a volunteers.
How do you subsist?
Sources of income of the foundation are comprised of conditional and unconditional donations. Domestically we are receiving donations from individuals, institutions, associations, businesses and industries. About accepting these donations, we have certain sponsorship criteria that we declared on our website. We only work with individuals, institutions and associations that comply with these criteria. So, we are not preoccupied with a fear that we should get donations no matter what. We are actualizing and sponsoring projects that will become the 350 thousand TEMA volunteers, that will make the 350 thousand TEMA volunteers happy, excited, and be useful to the country.
Could you briefly tell us about the "Don't waste your water" project that you personally run?
Don't waste your water campaign was started last year. A report was announced in February 2007. BY WHOM? And (WHAT DOES IT SAY? IS IT AN AGREEMENT? A COMMITTEE ARRIVED? WHO PUBLISHED THE REPORT?). It informed us of the consequences of global warming and climate change. The report was announced throughout the world, and this institution is the one that got the Nobel Peace price same year (IS IT AN INSTITUTION THAT ANNOUNCED THE REPORT?) IPCT along with argon (ARE THESE THE NAMES OF THE INSTITUTION?) The report was talking about a fast growing drought and the threat of desertification. In order to take precautions against the fast approaching drought and lack of water, we tried to explain the importance of climate change in Turkey as one of the regions in the world that will be affected more from the global warming due to its geographical conditions, from the perspective of the individual.
TEMA is a 16 year-old NGO, and it was founded and organized with a vision 16 years ahead of itself. We don't understand the gravity of the situation until we have water cuts; so until it really concerns us, it looks like as if it is a utopian danger, as if we are just trying to scare people for nothing. However, this past year when the drought began to show take its effect slowly, especially the major cities suffered from lack of water, lack of rain, a period of waterlessness has began. So as a precaution, immediately after the declaration of the report, we decided to start a large scale water campaign, a campaign that targets change in the way we consume water. We named this campaign "Don't Waste Your Water." In the don't waste your water campaign, we wanted to lead people to consume water more carefully by introducing them to 6 simple preventive measures that are quite easy to apply. Water usage in Turkey is 75% agriculture, followed by 12-13 % industry, and lastly 12% domestic. However in that short period of time when the threat of waterlessness has started, we did not have the opportunity to pass a bill to reduce that 75% of water usage in agriculture, nor we had the luxury to say, "do not open deep wells, and let's move on to drip irrigation techniques. As an NGO, we do not own a magic wand. It's the same with industrial establishments. Since we could not make them build purification facilities and reuse the water, we only had the individual to work on as an NGO, that is why we said "don't waste your water." I mean, since nobody is doing anything, at least we can take care of our own homes, get more conscious about it, and consume as less water as possible. That's how this campaign started.
Could you briefly tell us about other Tema activities?
Yes, we do have other activities. I can say that, as TEMA right now we are the most productive environment NGO in Turkey. Before all else, we are developing rural development projects for territorial loss, and the more efficient use of soil. We are actualizing these together with the business world and industrial sponsorships. On the other hand, we have nation-wide forestation campaigns. We are strengthening the vegetation since this is the most important precaution that prevents soil erosion. Education is also very important to us. We have a new education campaign. This is again going to be a first in Turkey; we said time is running out, the drought threat is as close as 2020. All NGOs shall combine their synergies and create a bigger noise. So with this in mind, we started the "Don't let our future melt" campaign in corporation with TURMEPA (CleanSea Foundation). Our goal is to raise awareness and train people in all 81 cities about global warming, climate change, the causes and consequences thereof, and the measures to take, both on land and sea. Our volunteer gain and volunteer participation campaigns are also continuing. We are rapidly working on raising the number of volunteers to millions. Other than these, obviously we are raising donations in order for our foundation to survive. We are participating in all international organizations in our area to which we are already accredited to, as well as the United Nations, and other environmental organizations. So, we maintain our work intensely and professionally.
Are you receiving any subsidies from the government?
We never had that kind of a relationship with the state, but we always collaborated. For instance, we are reforesting the areas granted by the state, thanks to the donations of our volunteers, the public, institutions and associations. Our collaborative TEMA oak project will continue until 2023. Other than that, the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, local administrations, etc. are all contributing to our rural development projects. So there are lots of collaborations.
What about your activities abroad?
We are Turkish NGO that is accredited to the climate change and desertification secretariats at the UN. We are endorsing all of their activities either within the administration of those, or as the project coordinator, or a participant.
Do you have any initiatives on the Green IT?
Following water, energy was the second topic of concern oriented towards conservation. While we are still not finished with the planning portion of our energy activities, we invited the worldly renowned environmental analyst Lester Brown to our country in June 2008. We provided important messages on efficient use of energy, thanks to Lester Brown. For instance, we used nature-friendly light bulbs on the models in Miniaturk which represent the significant monuments in Turkey. We have distributed messages within our association to support the use of nature-friendly light bulbs. We had and still have projects devoted to the proper use of energy.
Anything else you wish to add?
We are expecting supports regarding the utilization of information technologies in reaching more volunteers, and mobilizing more people, which will immensely help NGOs like us to function more pervasively. We expect IT companies to donate such works that they do for other companies, to the NGOs, and therefore contribute in their own way, just like an individual does.
