Türkiye will remove and dispose of 16 million cubic meters of seabed sludge accumulated across approximately 600 hectares of Fethiye Bay within three years using two dredging vessels, COP31 President and Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum said Tuesday.
Speaking at the launch event for the “Mooring Buoy System and Fethiye Seabed Sludge Cleanup” project in Fethiye is a district in Muğla Province, southwestern Türkiye, Kurum said Fethiye Bay is one of the most valuable treasures of Muğla and even the entire Mediterranean.
Kurum said decades of intensive use of the Bay, uncontrolled anchoring and sludge accumulated on the seabed have brought the rich underwater ecosystem to the point of suffocation and cast a shadow over the Bay’s clear blue waters.
He said Türkiye is moving beyond temporary solutions by securing the Göcek and Dalaman bays in Muğla province with a mooring buoy system covering approximately 90 kilometers of coastline within the Fethiye-Göcek Special Environmental Protection Area, while also launching a major seabed cleanup campaign.
Kurum said the project may initially appear to be a technical undertaking, but its significance is much broader. He noted that dropping an anchor takes only a few seconds, while a chain dragged along the seabed can destroy seagrass beds that have developed over many years.
