When our Honorary Chairman Late Ali Nihat Gökyiğit told in the broadly participated meeting, held in Izmir Poplar Farming Institute in 2005 with regard to company foundation, that he wanted to establish a company to perform industrial afforestation and whether there was anyone wishing to be a founding partner of that company, there was no participant in this long-term investment, which we were not quite used to. When he took the floor again and said “Even if nobody supports this project, which is vitally important for our company, I, an 80-year old, am determined to maintain this project by spending the rest of my life and a major portion of my wealth” the first step was taken toward establishment of the company with the support of 10 partners, and the investment was adopted by sector members.”
Our first afforestation activities started upon purchasing a land in Bursa Karacabey Kıranlar village. Then, degraded coppice forest lands within the territorial boundaries of three adjacent villages were allocated. Afforestation activities were maintained upon allocations made from Kızılköy in Ezine district of Çanakkale in 2008 and from degraded coppice forest lands in three adjacent villages in the following year. Land allocations were made from degraded forests in Gelibolu district of Çanakkale in 2010. Project activities continued with additional land allocations made in Kıranlar and Muratlı villages of Karacabey in 2015 and 2016.
Social supports such as almond orchard facilities, village mosque, village coffeehouse, maintenance and repair of village roads, milk cooling tank, student shuttles, bee hive purchase were profided in villages, where lands were allocated.
It was started to employ hundreds of workers in maintenance activities for yearly seedling plantings and seedlings planted in previous years, jobs were created for all members of families, including women, men, and the young. Important contribution was made to family budgets, every village desired performance of more afforestation activities within their boundaries and, therefore, more job opportunities. We really started to feel related to the village people. Kedikaya chief always expresses his pleasure by telling “What you did for us would not have been done by a father would for his son”.
Thus, the amount of private-registered and allocated areas reached a total of 1455 hectares and the number of planted seedlings approached 2.5 millions from 2005 until the end of 2019. We do not need any new land. Almost 60 hectares will be vacated and reforested every year beginning from 2033.
The purpose of the “project for establishment and development of industrial forest plantations in Turkey” can be briefly outlined as follows,