Haber (News Report)

Students Plant 500 Trees in Abandoned Rail Yard1

More than 200 secondary-school students planted around 500 native trees in a disused railway yard on the edge of Riverside on Saturday, transforming a derelict site into what organisers hope will one day become a public woodland.3

The project was led by the Riverside Green Schools network and supported by the city council, which donated the four-hectare plot of land earlier this year. Work began shortly after dawn and continued until late afternoon, with families and local volunteers joining the students. Tools, gloves and saplings were donated by three local nurseries, and a nearby café supplied free soup and bread throughout the day.4

"We wanted to prove that young people are not just worried about the climate — we are willing to do something about it," said Ayşe Kaya, a 16-year-old student who helped organise the event.5

Council officials said the new woodland would be opened to the public within two years, once the young trees had become established. According to the organisers, similar planting schemes are already planned for two other neighbourhoods in the coming months, with a target of 5,000 new trees across the city by 2028.6

The rail yard had stood empty for more than a decade and had become the subject of repeated complaints about litter and safety. Saturday's event was the largest volunteer gathering the district has seen in several years. Council leader Hasan Demir, who spent the morning planting alongside the students, said he hoped the woodland would eventually include footpaths, benches and a small wildlife pond.7

Rare Wetland Reopens After Decade-Long Restoration1

A vast coastal wetland that had all but vanished from the Delta region has been officially reopened to the public, following a ten-year restoration project that scientists have described as one of the most successful of its kind in the country.3

The 400-hectare marsh, drained for farmland in the 1970s, was gradually flooded again after conservation groups and the regional government agreed a joint recovery plan in 2016. Since the water returned, more than 180 species of bird have been recorded at the site, several of which had not been seen in the region for a generation.4

"A decade ago, this was dry, cracked earth. Today it is alive with birdsong," said Dr. Lena Ortega, the ecologist who led the monitoring team. "Nature, given even half a chance, is astonishingly quick to forgive."5

According to the project's final report, published on Monday, water quality in the surrounding rivers has improved measurably, and local fish stocks have risen for three consecutive years. The report also noted that seasonal flooding downstream had become less severe. Ecologists say the marsh now stores large amounts of carbon and acts as a natural buffer against the storm surges that have battered the coast in recent winters. A flock of flamingos, absent from the region for nearly forty years, was recorded nesting at the site in June.6

The restoration was funded by a mix of national grants, private donations and a small levy on nearby developments, at a total cost of around 14 million. Independent auditors described the spending as unusually efficient for a project of its scale, noting that volunteers had contributed more than 30,000 hours of unpaid work over the decade.

Not everyone, however, has welcomed the change. Some farmers argue that valuable agricultural land has been lost for good. "We understand the environmental case, but families here worked that ground for generations, and some of us were given very little say," said Marco Vidal, who chairs the regional growers' association. Regional officials responded that every affected farmer had been offered alternative land and full compensation, and that a support fund remained open for those who wished to retrain.7

The wetland will now be managed jointly by a newly created trust, with a network of public paths, bird hides and a small visitor centre due to open next month. Officials confirmed that entry to the reserve would be free of charge, and that a team of local guides would run free walks for schools throughout the year. Conservation groups in three neighbouring regions have since asked to study the project as a model for their own degraded wetlands.8