







































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 6(2): 171-196, July 2023 

RESEARCH PAPER 

Defending Nature: Transformation of the Space 
Through Grassroots Activism Against the Threat of 
Extractivism 

Büsra Üner 

Abstract: Despite the violence of law enforcement forces in Turkey, both urban 
and rural communities are protesting environmental injustices, including the 
ecological destruction, human rights violations, health problems, and displacement 
that the extractive industry causes. Despite the recent increase in discussions on the 
topic, the extractive industry and environmental protests are not recent debates in 
Turkish politics. Since the military coup of 1980, changes in mining codes have led 
communities to organize environmental protests to defend their livelihoods, place, 
and culture. For four decades, many communities have organized successful 
protests that have helped develop the environmental movement in Turkey. 
However, while some environmental movements have been ongoing for many 
years through grassroots activism, others have failed to create a collective identity 
that enables the entire community to come together. Hence, in this paper, I 
comparatively analyse the anti-mining environmental struggles of two communities. 
In doing so, I show how local inhabitants have been able to organize an 
environmental movement against extractivism to defend their livelihoods and space 
under an umbrella organization. I argue that as these local inhabitants organized an 
environmental movement as a place-based struggle to defend the place “where they 
lived in and acted” (Escobar 2008), a sustainable movement is more likely to arise 
from the grassroots activism of the community. 

Keywords: Anti-mining movements, Extractivism, Turkey, Ecological conflicts, 
Environmental justice. 

1. INTRODUCTION  

Despite a surge in recent times, debates over the extractive industry and 
environmental protests are not new in Turkey. Since the 1980 military coup, 
changes in mining codes have led both urban and rural communities to 

 

 Ph.D. candidate, Universität Bayreuth, Germany. buesra.uener@uni-bayreuth.de  

Copyright © Üner 2023. Released under Creative Commons Attribution © NonCommercial 

4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of  Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581–6152 (print); 2581–6101 (web).  

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v6i2.1037  

mailto:buesra.uener@uni-bayreuth.de
https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v6i2.1037


 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [172] 

protest against environmental injustices to defend their livelihoods, place, 
and culture. For four decades, many communities have organized successful 
protests that have contributed to the environmental movement in Turkey. 
However, while some environmental movements have lasted for many 
years through grassroots activism, others have failed to create a collective 
identity that enables the entire community to come together. Hence, in this 
paper, I comparatively analyse the anti-mining environmental struggles of 
two communities, addressing the question of how local inhabitants can 
create an environmental movement against extractivism to defend their 
livelihoods and space under an umbrella organization. How/why could the 
community in Çanakkale—a north-western province of Turkey—not create 
a collective identity to sustain an environmental movement against common 
threats, while the community in Artvin—a north-eastern province of 
Turkey—has been successful in creating joint action wherein residents of 
the entire city have participated? Given the role of place as an element that 
shapes community life, I vehemently defend the view that the 
organizational success of anti-mining environmental movements, at least in 
Turkey, depends on the social relationships that community members 
develop in their city. 

Figure 1: Location of Artvin  

 

Source: Wikipedia. 2023b. “Artvin in Turkey.”

In Turkey, the military coup on 12 September 1980 was a critical juncture in 
the state’s environmental and economic policies. The new regime 
introduced a neoliberal agenda and, accordingly, amendments were made in 
the legislation to meet the demands of the new economic framework. In 
1985, the amendment to Mining Law No 3213 was a turning point for the 
environment and economy of Turkey, as it granted international private 
corporations the right to get mining licenses for their projects (Arsel 2013; 
Erensü 2020). Subsequently, the Cerattepe (Artvin) anti-mining movement 



[173] Üner 

 

arose to resist a Canadian gold mining company, making it one of the first 
environmental protests in Turkey at this time. Since the mid-1990s, the 
Artvin community has been defending its place against the mining threat 
under the banner of a local civil society organization, the Green Artvin 
Association (YAD). The community has succeeded in bringing all residents 
together to defend their space, livelihoods, and culture, irrespective of 
political and ideological views. It succeeded in casting two Canadian gold 
mining companies, Cominco Inc and Inmet Mining, out of its territory. Yet, 
the third company, Cengiz Holding, supported by Turkey’s majority party, 
the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has been continuing copper 
mining activity in the Cerattepe region of Artvin since 2017—after the vigil 
protests of the community were violently suppressed. 1 Yet, the community 
continued to struggle for their city, defending not only Artvin, but also the 
city periphery, against increasing threats of mining in the current political 
atmosphere of Turkey. 

Figure 2: Location of Çanakkale 

 

Source: Wikipedia. 2023d. “Çanakkale in Turkey.”  

In 2019, the Kirazli (Canakkale) anti-mining movement arose against a 
Canadian gold mining company, Alamos Gold (EJOLT 2015).2 At the 

 

1 The planned mining operations were the cyanide-gold mining projects in Artvin. After a 
mass demonstration by the community through a vigil protest in 2016, the cyanide-gold 
mining project was transformed to a copper mining operation, to convince the community 
to allow them to continue mining operations because copper mining is less harmful than 
cyanide-gold mining. However, cyanide-gold mining projects are still on the agenda of the 
current corporation in Artvin. Further information for the planned gold mining projects in 
Artvin can be found in Mining Maven (2019) and Mining Technology (2023). 
2 Before the local community kept vigil to defend their livelihoods in Kirazlı village 
in Çanakkale, the community was not unfamiliar with environmental threats and 
environmental demonstrations. Since the beginning of the 2000s, environmental 
protests against mining projects have been ongoing in Canakkale. However, what 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [174] 

beginning of the protests, the Çanakkale residents and those living in other 
cities in Turkey started to keep a vigil in Kirazlı village (Çanakkale), where 
the company aimed to construct its mining operations, to defend the place 
and stop the company. However, the vigil protest of the community did not 
last, and conflicts arose among the actors of this environmental movement 
due to their different understandings of environmentalism, politics, and 
ways of organization and mobilization. Hence, each actor founded its own 
platform, group, or association to sustain the environmental movement in 
Çanakkale. 

Although there have been many environmental movements against 
extractivism3 in Turkey, in recent years, the Cerattepe and Kirazlı cases have 
become popular by adapting the same mobilization strategies—vigil 
protests. However, the actors in both movements are differently organized. 
Therefore, research on these cases is crucial to identify the characteristics 
and transformation of environmental movements in the current 
atmosphere, where the extractive sector grows day by day and the violence 
against environmental defenders by law enforcement forces and 
corporations has been increasing. For this comparative research, I have 
conducted a month-long fieldwork in both cities. During my fieldwork, I 
carried out semi-structured interviews with city residents and the active 
participants of environmental protests, including members of local civil 
society organizations, lawyers, teachers, journalists, members of 
municipalities, and shopkeepers. Additionally, I had unofficial and daily 
conversations with city residents as well as observed their daily lives. 

The comparison between these movements demonstrates that the Artvin 
community could act together to defend their livelihoods and resist law-
enforcement officers who violently suppressed the vigil protest in 2017. I 
argue that the active presence of the local environmental organization, 
YAD, which locals identify as a supra-political body, contributed to the 
continuity of the environmental movement through the establishment of 
common ground among the inhabitants of Artvin. Bearing the Cerattepe 
(Artvin) example in mind, I assert that strong alliances forged firstly among 

 

makes the vigil protest that took place in 2019 significant is that both the local 
community and people all around the country come to Kirazlı village to protest the actions 
of the corporation. 
3 In this study, I define extractivism as all projects that destroy human and non-human lives 
to accumulate capital, leading to distributional and participatory injustices. Given the growth 
of extractive industries over the last two decades, mining, hydroelectric power plants, and 
thermal power plants are the most common industries in Turkey. Following these industries, 
other industries—including geothermal power plants, wind energy systems, and nuclear 
power plants—are mushrooming. For further information on extractive industries in Turkey.   



[175] Üner 

 

local community members play a decisive role in furthering alliances with 
other groups, including but not limited to environmentalists, civil society 
organizations, and activists at the national scale. However, when alliances 
with environmental organizations, activists, and environmentalists at the 
national scale are prioritized, they are less likely to engender environmental 
justice movements. 

There are other factors, such as local differences, which we need to analyse 
to have a better understanding of the sustainability of environmental 
movements as well as of the alliances among diverse actors and 
organizations. Place is an important element to study geographical, 
historical, and cultural differences and their effects on the organization of 
local resistances (Escobar 2008). I argue that when local inhabitants 
organize an environmental movement as a place-based struggle to defend 
the place “where they lived in and acted” (Escobar 2008), a sustained 
movement is more likely to arise. In Artvin, the local community defends 
its livelihoods with an emphasis on Cerattepe as a place where they live, act, 
and breathe. Additionally, I realized that the history of the city contributed 
to maintaining the environmental movement under an umbrella 
environmental association with democratic and participatory decision-
making processes. After the military coup in 1980 depoliticized leftist 
groups in Artvin, these groups used their experience of organization for 
anti-mining mobilization. In this vein, that community members 
depoliticized by the military coup see environmental issues as a new field of 
struggle plays an important role in maintaining the grassroots 
environmental movement in Artvin (Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut 2015). 

2. AN OUTLINE OF THE CERATTEPE AND KIRAZLI ANTI-
MINING ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS 

The Cerattepe anti-mining movement has been continuing for over two 
decades in Artvin and has significantly shaped the daily lives of local 
communities and the relationships among them. On the other hand, the 
Kirazlı anti-mining environmental movement emerged as a result of 
grassroots activism in Çanakkale, but it quickly attracted the attention of 
many actors in other cities in Turkey in August 2019. Although this anti-
mining movement has been active with protests and involves various 
environmental organizations, environmentalists, ecologists, and NGOs, 
grassroots activism could not be maintained because of disagreements 
among community members.  

In 1989, Cominco Inc from Canada acquired licences for cyanide-gold 
mining in Artivin from the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. By 
1995, local inhabitants had founded YAD. In 2002, Cominco Inc stopped 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [176] 

the project but transferred its licenses to another Canadian company, Inmet 
Mining. The court cancelled the mining licence of the company in 2008, 
marking a significant success for the community in terms of realizing 
environmental justice. Again, in 2011, the Ministry of Energy and Natural 
Resources announced that within the scope of the new mining law, they 
were going to contract away 1,343 mining sites in Turkey, including 
Cerattepe and Genya Mounts in Artvin. In 2012, Eti Bakır Corporation, a 
subsidiary company of Cengiz Holding,4 received a mining licence. This 
triggered a new period of legal action and vigil protests. Yet, in February 
2016, law enforcement officers violently crushed the vigil and prohibited 
people from travelling to the city to support the local community and the 
protests.5 

After the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, the copper mining operation 
started in Artvin. Taking advantage of the coup-related state of emergency, 
the governor of the city banned protests for two years. In 2017, YAD filed 
a lawsuit in the constitutional court to bring a stop to the environmental 
injustices caused by mining activities; this time, there were 708 
complainants. Additionally, YAD worked hard to create networks with 
other environmental movements mushrooming in different regions in the 
country in alliance with the umbrella ecological organization, the Ecology 
Union (EU), which operated at a national scale. One of the ecological 
struggles that the Artvin community relentlessly monitored and supported 
was the Kirazlı anti-mining movement, which emerged in August 2019. 
After mass protests flared up in Kirazlı village, YAD went to Çanakkale to 
support the resistance of the community, which was protesting gold mining 
projects in Kirazlı by keeping watch for the company’s entry into the 
region. However, the Artvin community emphasized that in the Kirazlı 
movement, organizational strategies and decision-making processes were 
completely different from that of the Cerattepe movement. Therefore, it is 
important to compare the organization of the Cerattepe movement with the 
Kirazlı movement to understand the conditions that are conducive to the 
success of grassroots environmental movements. 

Similar to Artvin, Çanakkale is under threat of planned mining projects, 
especially because of its mineral resources. In 2010, Alamos Gold bought 
the Kirazlı cyanide-gold mining project from Teck Resources Ltd and 
Frontier Development Group. In 2012, the company gained a positive 
environmental impact assessment (EIA) report. In July 2019, drone images 

 

4 A company that has close relationships with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) 
government: https://www.cengizholding.com.tr/.  
5 The law enforcement forces used pepper gas on protestors, and the state filed a penal suit 
upon those attending the demonstrations. For the further information, see Nilay (2016). 

https://www.cengizholding.com.tr/


[177] Üner 

 

of devastated areas in Kirazlı were displayed on social media by Turkish 
Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion for Reforestation and for 
Protection of Natural Habitats (TEMA), leading to massive public 
opposition immediately. The members of the Ida Solidarity Association, the 
City Council, and the Çanakkale Municipality established a committee, 
namely, Water and Conscience, to organize a vigil against the proposed 
project in the area and announced that all activists and supporters would be 
invited to come with their tents and join the protests. Hence, protests 
rapidly erupted with the participation of diverse actors from Çanakkale as 
well as other cities. After the mass protests against the proposed mining 
project in August 2019, the Water and Conscience Committee decided to 
move the vigil protest to the city centre and abandon the project area in 
Kirazlı village. Yet, others continued to stay in the area until law 
enforcement violently expelled them in September 2020.  

Overall, unlike the Cerattepe anti-mining movement in Artvin, the Kirazlı 
movement did not continue with alliances under an umbrella local 
organization in Çanakkale. On the contrary, both movements mobilized 
diverse actors through various ways of protesting, especially by having held 
a vigil in the project area. I argue that the use of the same mobilization 
strategies was the result of the sharing of experiences among distinct local 
ecological movements for many years. Yet, even if local ecological conflicts 
learn from each other through experience sharing, use the same 
mobilization strategies, and try to create alliances, a question remains as to 
how grassroots activism can continue by mobilizing the whole community 
with a common purpose to defend their living space against ecological 
threats. I think that the Kirazlı and Cerattepe movements are two crucial 
cases for understanding how different organizational strategies and 
historical and geographical differences impact the emergence and 
sustainability of grassroots environmental activism. 

3. A NEW ERA OF MINERAL DEVELOPMENT 

The neoliberalization of the global economy has significantly affected the 
mining sector and states’ relations with capital. Studies on the mining 
industry and anti-mining conflicts show that since the 1980s, the global 
economy has entered “a new era of mineral development” through 
structural shifts in the role of states, and in the relationships among 
corporations, states, and communities, as well as changes in material needs 
for extraction (Ballard and Banks 2003; Bridge 2004; Jacka 2018; Yaşın 
2019). Focusing on the reasons for the structural shifts in global 
extractivism, these studies examine the characteristics of the new mineral 
economy, the links between communities and their space and environment, 
asymmetrical power relations, political and ecological struggles among 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [178] 

communities and corporations, and mining code reforms (Martinez-Alier 
2002; Ballard and Banks 2003; Escobar 2008). The increased social 
metabolism of a capitalist economy is one of the reasons for the emergence 
of a new mineral economy (Martinez-Alier 2002; Yaşın 2019). With the 
growth of the global population, the need for material extraction has risen 
from the late 1970s to the 2000s (Bridge 2004; Yaşın 2019). So, this capital 
economy has shaped the characteristics of a new era of mineral 
development. 

Firstly, the erosion of legal compliance is one of the key characteristics of 
the new mineral development era (Bridge 2004; Jacka 2018). Faced with 
pressures from international financial institutions such as the World Bank, 
states—mostly in the Global South—have changed their mineral codes so 
as to make natural, coastal, and agricultural regions more easily 
commodified than ever before (Çoban, Özlüer, and Erensü 2015; Jacka 
2018). Secondly, not only have NGOs, lawyers, academics, and local 
communities been involved with the extractive sector since the introduction 
of neoliberal reforms, but also corporations and new actors that shape 
social, political, and economic spheres (Ballard and Banks 2003; Bridge 
2004). Thirdly, following the neoliberalization and deregulation of the 
mining sector, environmental concerns became more visible, and key issues 
were discussed globally (Bridge 2004). On the one hand, local communities 
resist planned or ongoing extractivist projects. On the other, new measures 
are taken to supposedly “protect the environment and achieve sustainable 
development” by states and corporations trying to curb local communities’ 
mobilization (Ballard and Banks 2003; Bridge 2004; Jacka 2018). 

This historical transformation of the global mining industry has 
reconfigured the relationship between the state, capital, and the 
environment in Turkey following the spatial and material expansion of 
mining frontiers (Yaşın 2019). Material extraction and consumption has 
expanded in Turkey over the last two decades (Yaşın 2019). Following 
universal debates on environmental protection and sustainability and global 
changes in the mining industry, the erosion of laws, emerging actors, and 
increasing environmental concerns define the characteristics of the mining 
industry. On the one hand, debates on sustainability and environmental 
protection have opened up new channels for interacting with international 
actors through environmental NGOs, bringing forth new policies 
supporting the actions of the economic market for environmental 
protection coupled with modernization and development (Adaman and 
Arsel 2005). On the other hand, changes in mining laws facilitated foreign 
private mining corporations to emerge as new actors in Turkey’s economy, 
leading natural areas to be used for drilling works by corporations, two of 



[179] Üner 

 

which are the Cerattepe and Kirazlı gold mining projects.6 However, local 
communities—the other new actors of this era—have organized protests 
and environmental movements to curb the drilling works and mining 
projects of these corporations through demands for justice, stemming from 
the asymmetrical relationships among corporations, the government, and 
local communities regarding the use of resources (Bridge 2004).  

After the 12 September 1980 military coup, a new constitution was created 
in 1982. The post-coup consensus between the state and capital led to 
neoliberal reforms. The state adopted economic policies that would more 
rapidly commodify nature than ever (Çoban, Özlüer, and Erensü 2015).7 
The amendment to Mining Law No 3213, which granted international 
private corporations the right to get mining licences for their projects (Arsel 
2013; Erensü 2020), was a turning point for the environment and economy 
of Turkey. Following this amendment, a wave of projects was rapidly 
declared—the Bergama (İzmir) cyanide-gold mining project in the early 
1990s, the Cerattepe (Artvin) cyanide-gold mining project in the early 
1990s, and the Kışladağ (Uşak) cyanide-gold mining project in the late 
1990s. The state substantially readapted Mining Law No. 3213 in 2004, and, 
accordingly, the mining activities operated by corporations expanded 
(Erensü 2020). At the same time, Omnibus Bill No 5177 allowed legally 
protected areas to be used for mining in 2004 (Çoban 2018). Çoban, 
Özlüer, and Erensü (2015) argue that the state enacted legal and 
institutional deregulation through constitutional changes to facilitate the 
expansion of the market without considering environmental burdens and 
risks. Relatedly, especially in the 2000s, lands, forests, pastures, and coasts 
belonging to the state’s treasury rapidly became commodified for market 
investment and construction projects, industrial agriculture, mining 
activities, and energy projects that caused/will cause various sorts of 

 

6 Before these planned mining projects, mining activities continued in order to achieve 
economic development. However, these were state-led initiatives that were operating the 
mine fields rather than private corporations.  
7 From the foundation of the new republic in 1923 till the 1950s, economic policies 
supported the development of agriculture through protectionist control over foreign trade 
and exchange (Pamuk 2010; Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut 2021). The protectionist policies of 
the state led to the nationalization of existing companies in this time (Pamuk 2010). In the 
1950s, industrialization and urbanization shifted state policies away from taking care of 
agriculture and the countryside—yet, agriculture was still a main area for development 
(Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut 2021). In the 1960s and 70s, the private sector started to take 
over state-led industries. In the 1980s, the role of rural players declined in the economy while 
international players like the IMF and World Bank and market ideology became powerful 
(Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut 2021). During the AKP era, neoliberalization of the economy 
deepened through policies supporting the deagrarianisation of the countryside, which 
opened the way for an unprecedented extractive drive (Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut 2021).  



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [180] 

ecological destruction all around the country (Çoban, Özlüer, and Erensü 
2015). 

Overall, the expansion of the neoliberal market economy in Turkey has 
aggravated environmental problems, and thus, opened up a space for civic 
interventions and resistance against its hazardous impacts (Aydın 2005). 
Civil society actors replaced the role of the state in shaping environmental 
policies against the ecological destruction caused by the mushrooming 
neoliberal actors and policies all around the country. However, many civil 
society organizations mobilizing to impede ecological destruction in alliance 
with local communities were limited in capacity in terms of confronting 
neoliberal market relations. Nevertheless, I argue that civil society 
organizations substantially contributed to the mobilization of local 
communities in these ecological struggles and created alliances with them 
against environmental degradation. As the following sections outline, the 
results of this contribution, however, were yet to come. 

4.  THE RISE OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE 
MOVEMENTS AND PLACE-BASED STRUGGLES 

In a globalizing and neoliberalizing world that facilitates the onset of a new 
mineral era, local communities have increasingly begun to take action to 
defend their livelihoods, place, and environment. Networks established 
among different localities around the world help local environmental 
movements share experiences about forms of mobilization and 
organization strategies (Martinez-Alier et al 2016). Explaining anti-mining 
environmental movements through two concepts, ecological distribution 
conflicts and place-based struggles, studies on environmental justice and 
social movements focus on the historical evolution of environmental justice 
demands, the rise of ecological conflicts, and diverse kinds of 
environmentalism.   

Environmental justice is a concept that refers to historic conflicts on sulfur 
dioxide, the Chipko and Chico Mendes cases, current conflicts on the use 
of carbon sinks, conflicts about dams, cases pertaining to the preservation 
of rainforests for livelihoods, and many other cases around the world 
(Martinez-Alier 2002). From the 1980s onwards, early studies on 
environmental justice paid attention to the uneven distribution of 
environmental burdens and risks on disadvantaged communities—which 
were unequally distributed due to their choice of location (Bullard 1990; 
Agyeman et al 2016). Addressing environmental racism against black and 
Latino communities, scholars used the lens of environmental justice to 
analyse urban-based environmental movements in the US (Temper, Del 
Bene, and Martinez-Alier 2015; Scheidel et al 2018). These works, however, 



[181] Üner 

 

neglected the different claims of environmentalism and rural conflicts in the 
Global South (Martinez-Alier 2002; Martinez-Alier et al 2016). Following 
the emergence of questions on what kinds of values and visions matter, and 
who is involved in decision-making processes and how, environmental 
justice frameworks, in recent studies, combine the environmental justice 
discourses of the Global North with the environmentalism of the Global 
South through claims of recognition and participation as well as distributive 
approaches (Temper et al 2015; Özkaynak and Rodriguez-Labajos 2017).  

Conflicts related to ecological distribution centre on struggles surrounding 
valuation processes in terms of which values are deemed relevant for 
decision-making—such as market and monetary values, livelihood values, 
territorial rights, and ecological values (Martinez-Alier 2002). Resisting 
extraction that would contaminate their environment in favour of state and 
corporate profit, and defending livelihoods in ecological distribution 
conflicts such as mining conflicts, are identified as environmentalism of the 
poor (Martinez-Alier 2002; Scheidel et al 2018). Despite the different 
motivations and values of these people, their primary reason to create an 
environmental movement is to protest market relations (Martinez-Alier 
2002). In a globalizing world, protests against market relations have become 
more networked, such that a global environmental justice movement has 
become possible. In other words, the local community’s alignments with 
other actors, coalitions, and networks at the international scale make mining 
and environmental issues global (Çoban 2004; Walder 2009). Thus, the 
protests of different local movements contribute to a larger purpose, not 
only in opposing and sometimes transforming the unsustainable use of 
resources, but also by encouraging political debates on the commodification 
of the environment and renegotiating public values about sustainability 
(Scheidel et al 2018). 

On the contrary, other environmental justice and social movement studies 
criticize the constitution of a global environmental justice movement. 
Cultural and historical differences are important for a community to 
develop a collective identity in the development of a social movement. 
However, the idea of a global environmental justice movement could 
sometimes neglect these differences (Escobar 2008). A social movement 
identity is the extent to which both groups and individuals feel part of a 
collectivity and are able to identify common elements in their past, present, 
and future experiences (Della Porta and Diani 2006, 2015). So, identity-
building in a social movement gives the community a sense of belonging 
and collectivity that is maintained even after a particular protest has ended 
(Della Porta and Diani 2006, 2015). In different localities, communities 
create their collective identity through their attachment to the place and 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [182] 

fight for their place—a constitutive space where they live and act. These 
communities maintain their grassroots activism through local networks and 
place-based solidarities, allying with one another through common feelings 
and values and by encouraging people to participate in the movement 
(Escobar 2008; Nicholls 2009).  

Accordingly, the cases that I comparatively study in this research prove the 
critique of a global environmental justice movement. In the environmental 
history of Turkey, the military coup on 12 September 1980 is a critical point 
to explain the rise of environmental movements. Not surprisingly, the 
suppression during and following the military coup led to the curious rise of 
ecological struggles, especially because many environmental organizations 
started to call their activities non-political (Erensü et al 2016). Since the late 
1980s and early 1990s, the growing role of environmental organizations was 
revealed in the increasing organizational capacity of local inhabitants to 
defend their livelihoods in alliance with actors from different levels. Some 
environmental movements in the aftermath of the 1980s benefitted from 
the pre-1980 era’s organizational strategies and were more likely to ally with 
socialist and leftist groups and the Green Party (Adem 2005; Erensü et al 
2016). 

Thus, Turkey’s post-1980s atmosphere enabled people to come together to 
expand their personal and political freedoms through environmental 
activism (Turhan, Aydın, and Özkaynak 2019). In this context, Adaman, 
Arsel, and Akbulut (2015) demonstrate the importance of local differences 
of place in the creation of an environmental movement through the 
concept of environmentalism of the malcontent. According to them, the 
concept of environmentalism of the poor defines those who defend their 
livelihoods against market relations, which, in other parts of the world, may 
fail as a definition of the characteristics of environmental movements. After 
the military coup in 1980, these people organized movements in the 
depoliticized atmosphere of the era by capitalizing on their experiences of 
mobilization, and environmental activism replaced the severely suppressed 
leftist and socialist groups (Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut 2015). 

In recent years, ecological struggles have been more rapidly emerging all 
around the country as the state expands the extraction industry by 
deregulating the related laws. Since the 2010s, the extraction industry has 
become a vital factor in reshaping environmental policies during the AKP 
period through the central government’s authority and decisions over land 
use (Çoban 2018). In this era, centralized decisions about land use, 
especially in the countryside, have been taken without the participation of 
local actors in decision-making processes (Özkaynak et al 2015). However, 
despite the rapid rise of environmental movements all around the country, 



[183] Üner 

 

particularly after the 2010s, only a few have managed to sustain grassroots 
environmental activism, while many environmental movements were either 
dissolved by their own local communities or continue through other actors 
like civil-society initiatives. In this context, to understand the reasons for 
the failure of grassroots activism and alliances among diverse actors, it is 
critical to comparatively study the environmental movements of Turkey. 
Thus, I argue that we need to fully analyse how local communities may be 
able to sustain their grassroots activism through strong alliances at a local 
scale because these alliances among community members contribute to 
creating networks with other environmental organizations and diverse 
actors at the national and international scales, like in the case of the 
Cerattepe anti-mining environmental movement. 

5. THE PLACE-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT IN 
ARTVIN  

Artvin is a provincial city located in the northeastern Black Sea region of 
Turkey with a population of 170,875 people, sharing its border with 
Georgia and far from major cities like Istanbul and Ankara. Its ecology is 
characterized by enormous biodiversity, including endemic species and old-
growth forests along the harsh geography extending across the Karçal 
Mountains. The Çoruh River, which flows in the city and throughout the 
Çoruh Basin, is particularly significant for the city’s ecology. These 
ecological fields are significant places where community members breathe, 
spend their time, earn their livelihoods, and shape their memories. In 
addition, Artvin, historically, is an important city in which leftist political 
groups organized and were severely suppressed in the 12 September 1980 
military coup. A group of inhabitants participated in the Cerattepe 
environmental movement due to their prior or existing affiliations with the 
leftist culture and following the traumas of the military coup. Given the 
ecological and historical characteristics of Artvin, the inhabitants have been 
protesting mining projects here under an umbrella environmental 
organization, YAD, since the mid-1990s. 

One of the important reasons for why the community has been able to 
achieve a long-duration environmental movement is its supra-political 
character—not politicizing environmental issues but rather emphasizing the 
commonality of mining hazards and risks to the whole community. By 
becoming supra-political, YAD emphasized the struggle for city, space, and 
environment in order to locally organize the whole community. It was able 
to create alliances with political parties and bureaucratic actors to make the 
problems nationally visible, raising the issue in assemblies in Ankara, the 
capital city, to demand environmental justice. Thus, YAD created an 
important space where the whole community could collect, share, and 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [184] 

disseminate information concerning the proposed projects, not only within 
their own community, but also with potential stakeholders and partners. 

To understand why Cerattepe is a significant place in people’s daily lives, it 
is crucial to focus on its geographical location—on top of the mountains 
just above the city. Since Cerattepe is very close to the urban centre, the 
community can monitor environmental degradation easily. One of the 
interviewees underlined that the mining activity violates their lifestyle while 
undermining the place they act daily. Due to the mining activity, they could 
not go to the Kafkasör and Cerattepe areas for leisure time activities with 
their children (Interview 2). The mining activity, in other words, breaks the 
community’s daily routines. At the same time, while complaining about 
environmental threats in the city, community members usually refer to the 
destruction caused by the Murgul mining operation,8 47 km away from the 
city, as well as the Deriner dam and HEPP project constructed on the 
Çoruh River in 2012. Both these projects are the main reasons why the 
community has been protesting the Cerattepe mining operation. In other 
words, the community is already familiar with how a mining project pollutes 
the environment and the city and threatens the livelihoods of its people. 
One of the interviewees who previously lived in Murgul mentioned their 
memories of how the home in which they had lived throughout their 
childhood had been destroyed during the mining blasts (Interview 13). 
Another interviewee who lived in Murgul for several years also stated how 
agricultural products could not be grown anymore because of air pollution 
(Interview 4). The shared history engraved in their minds, and the threat 
posed to the very livelihoods of these people, created a common ground on 
which this all-encompassing, supra-political environmental movement 
flourished. 

Additionally, the historical character of the city contributed to the 
organization of an environmental movement under an umbrella 
organization. Even if community members identify this movement as 
supra-political, for those who share the traumas of the military coup, 
environmentalism has become a new field of politics. By using their 
previous experiences of organizing to create an environmental movement, 
“environmentalism of the malcontent” (Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut 2015) 
has mobilized people to defend their livelihoods and has reversed the 
repressed past by creating a new field of activism (Interview 3).  

Hence, despite having different motivations and ideologies, the community 
has found common ground under a supra-political environmental 

 

8 It has been operating in Murgukl district in Artvin, destroying an entire city, its ecology, 
and human health. 



[185] Üner 

 

organization in Artvin. This common ground is rooted in a defence of 
place, memories, livelihoods, and daily routines as well as a close 
attachment to the city, trustful relations among people, cultural values, and 
improved relations with the environment. In this context, the supra-political 
character of the movement is critical in thinking about the characteristics of 
environmental movements in Turkey. As I have demonstrated before, the 
supra-political character contributed to creating a place-based 
environmental movement (Escobar 2008) by combining different political 
ideologies. So, YAD, an essential organization at the local and regional 
scales, makes the voices of the Artvin people heard within the city centre 
and surrounding villages. 

6. STRUGGLES AMONG COMMUNITY MEMBERS: 
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUEs AS A PART OF POLITICS? 

Çanakkale is a city located in the Biga Peninsula in the northwestern Aegean 
region of Turkey with a population of 5,41,548 people. Mount Ida is the 
highest mountain in the region and extends through the southeast of the 
Biga Peninsula within the borders of the Çanakkale and Balıkesir provinces 
(TEMA 2020). The region is geographically characterized by its strategic 
location, close to Istanbul and Dardanelles, and is surrounded by many 
holiday destinations, making this area a transition point for travellers from 
Istanbul and other cities in the Thrace region to the Aegean region. Also, 
districts such as Küçükkuyu and Bayramiç are popular places where people 
have settled to escape from the difficulties of urban life and to create a 
lifestyle more engaged with ecological and cultural activities (Aynalı 2020). 
In this region, thermal power plants and the proposed mining projects pose 
severe threats to biodiversity, culture, agriculture, and the livelihoods of the 
inhabitants of the region. Currently, 76% of the Mount Ida region is 
licensed for extractive activities by the proposed mining projects (TEMA 
2020). 

In the Kirazlı environmental movement, one of the reasons for opposing 
the proposed project is water contamination. If the mining project had 
commenced operations, the Atikhisar dam, a main water resource of the 
Çanakkale province, would be polluted by mining activity. The protestors, 
who came from different regions across the country, opposed the project 
due to the risk of environmental degradation, ecological destruction, air 
pollution, water contamination, soil erosion, and undemocratic decision-
making by the current government. At the regional scale, the Çanakkale 
municipality assumed a leading role in initiating a Water and Conscience 
Watch in Balabanlı Hill in 2019. In organizing this protest, the municipality 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [186] 

cooperated with the Ida Solidarity Association9 and the Union of Chambers 
of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) and created a Water and 
Conscience Committee. When environmental issues mainly occupied the 
agenda of the inhabitants in Çanakkale, the Ida Solidarity Association aimed 
to mobilize all inhabitants under an umbrella organization. Yet, it could not 
bring the whole community together against a common environmental 
threat in the city because of different approaches to environmentalism.  

In Çanakkale, the local community also involves people living in 
Küçükkuyu—a small district in Çanakkale—villagers, ecologists, and people 
from the ecotourism industry. The locals consist of people who migrated 
from İstanbul, who have been actively organizing environmental struggles 
against mining and thermal power plant projects since the beginning of the 
2000s. These people are organized under an association, namely, the 
Kazdağı Association for the Preservation of Natural and Cultural 
Resources, founded in 2012. At the same time, others established a 
platform, namely, the Brotherhood of Kazdağları, to debate the 
environmental problems of the Mount Ida region (Interview 26). The 
Kazdağı Association for the Preservation of Natural and Cultural Resources 
allied with the Brotherhood of Kazdağları during the Kirazlı environmental 
mobilization and those who came from Istanbul to support the 
environmental protests that occurred in Çanakkale. They also formed a 
group, namely, Kazdağları İstanbul Solidarity. These people, mostly college-
graduated, migrated to Çanakkale at the beginning of the 2000s and then in 
the 2010s to escape urban life and recognized the importance of 
environmental issues and mining threats immediately. They linked 
environmental issues with politics when environmental issues started 
threatening their lifestyle in their new living place. They saw the 
environmental movement as a politicized process and believed in the 
importance of establishing alliances with other environmental activists all 
around the country. They maintained a watch-keeping protest in Kirazlı in 
2019 after the Water and Conscience Watch was ended by the municipality 
together with some local NGOs. This group saw the environmental 
movement as a way to protest present governmental policies and aimed to 
radicalize environmental activism by unmasking the relations between 
environmental issues and politics (Interviews 21, 26, and 27). 

On the other hand, the people organized under the Ida Solidarity 
Association and allied with the municipality and other local NGOs tended 

 

9 Ida Solidarity Association is an organization that was founded in 2015 to achieve 
environmental and social justice in Çanakkale and allied with the Çanakkale municipality and 
local NGOs in Çanakkale to organize the environmental movement in the city. 



[187] Üner 

 

to exclude those who migrated to Çanakkale from Istanbul. They were 
unwilling to politicize environmental issues, and, instead, identified 
environmental problems as a problem of livelihood and a non-political 
issue. In other words, they emphasized that the vigil in Kirazlı village aimed 
to defend water resources because the Atikhisar dam met the water demand 
of Çanakkale. Thus, they opposed those who politicized environmental 
issues. Two interviewees explained that the people who came from Istanbul 
had identified their environmental mobilization as political, and these 
migrants or those who came from İstanbul to support their movement 
should not be allowed to participate in decision-making processes 
(Interviews 19 and 20). They added that although displaying political flags 
on Balabanlı Hill during the vigil had been banned, the people from 
Istanbul had unfurled political flags (Interviews 19 and 20). 

Thus, one of the most important reasons why the Çanakkale community 
could not sustain the supra-political organization, and instead, different 
environmental groups had mushroomed, is the geographical character of 
the city. In the organization and mobilization of the Kirazlı environmental 
movement, a collective identity, based on the place where the protestors 
live and act, could not be created because of the city’s geographical location, 
and because it functioned as a transition and migration point. The 
environmental mobilization continued with the support of diverse actors 
that joined this movement to show their opposition to the current 
oppressive policies of the government rather than seeing this movement as 
a place-based struggle. At the same time, because Kirazlı’s location is far 
away from the city centre, this place does not significantly shape the daily 
lives of citizens, unlike Artvin. Lastly, the lack of a supra-political umbrella 
organization with democratic and participatory decision-making 
mechanisms adversely impacted the organizational strategy by hindering the 
protestors from reaching a common ground based on the defence of place 
in Çanakkale. 

7. DISCUSSION 

In this part, I compare the roles of the actors and their place in the rise of 
environmental movements. In this comparison, I argue that when local 
inhabitants organize an environmental movement as a place-based struggle 
to defend the place where they live and act, they are more likely to ally with 
each other under an umbrella environmental organization against the 
mining threat by ignoring differences in political views. Although I am 
referring to a place, I emphasize the historical and geographical attributes of 
cities. Because these attributes have an impact on social relations among 
community members, people’s relations with the environment, as well as 
their approaches to environmentalism, I try to understand how a place is an 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [188] 

important factor in the organization and mobilization of the local 
community in an environmental movement. 

Because of Artvin’s unique location with enormous mountains surrounding 
the area, which contributes to the harshness of its geography, it is more 
isolated and less cosmopolitan, making it harder to access the province. 
Even though the Cerattepe environmental movement had become very 
visible all around the country and was supported by diverse actors at the 
national scale, the number of people who physically visited Artvin to 
support the environmental movement was limited. In this respect, the local 
inhabitants were the main actors in organizing the environmental 
movement. They took on this responsibility by organizing YAD and by 
labelling their movement as supra-political to bring the whole community 
together to defend the place they live, love, breathe, and enjoy. At the same 
time, it is a place visible from the city’s downtown, whenever the 
inhabitants look up at the mountains surrounding the city. As one of the 
interviewees said, “it is a city with a face-up” (Interview 7). Also, the Artvin 
inhabitants go to the plateaus and the mountains surrounding Cerattepe in 
their leisure time. In this respect, the gold-mining activity in Cerattepe 
breaks the community’s daily routine in addition to degrading the 
environment and transforming the culture embedded in the place. The 
culture embedded in the place enables inhabitants to create a collective 
identity through solidarity networks with each other (Nicholls 2009). 

In contrast, Çanakkale is located on the west side of Turkey, and it is easily 
reachable from Istanbul. The geography of Çanakkale is also significantly 
different from that of Artvin. It is a city that spreads along the coastline 
rather than being spread throughout the mountains like Artvin. Unlike 
Artvin, it is hard to recognize environmental destruction from the 
Çanakkale city centre because Kirazlı village is not visible from downtown. 
On one hand, the increasing population of the city is crucial to understand 
the characteristics of the environmental movement in Çanakkale, because 
those who migrate to the city actively participate in the environmental 
movement and create alliances with other environmentalist groups all 
around the region, especially İstanbul. On the other hand, its location close 
to Istanbul enables many people to come to this region to support 
environmental mobilization against the mining corporation and ecological 
destruction in Çanakkale. In this respect, I contend that the geographical 
location of the city enables diverse actors, including city inhabitants, those 
who come to support the movement, and others who migrate to the city 
from other metropolitan cities, to take part in the environmental 
movement. 



[189] Üner 

 

In the grassroots environmental activism of Artvin, local inhabitants 
organized themselves to defend a place that is particularly important for 
their daily routine in Artvin. Many of the inhabitants are members of this 
organization, created to defend Cerattepe against the threat of mining. 
Under YAD, community members take responsibility to defend the place, 
and their protest activities spread around the city and target corporations, 
the state, and ecological destruction through an understanding of “topyekün 
çevrecilik” (Erensü 2014, 2016, 2020) by bringing together those with a leftist 
past, the “environmentalism of the malcontent” (Adaman et al 2015), with 
more conservative and rightist members of the community. When 
Cerattepe is viewed as a place that shapes daily life with its geographical 
features and cultural attributions, community members who have different 
understandings of environmentalism can come together to identify 
environmentalism as supra-political activity. For example, when the vigil 
protest was organized in the Cerattepe region, the atmosphere of solidarity 
created in Cerattepe was felt in the downtown of the city (Interview 16). In 
this respect, I argue that the Artvin community has transformed the place 
into a space for social movement within the environmental movement 
(Escobar 2008), and in this process, YAD as an organization shapes 
everyday relations in the city. For this transformation of the city into a 
social movement space, I also maintain that the supra-political character of 
YAD played a critical role, as it served as a strategic shift to bring the whole 
community together above the community members’ political and 
ideological differences that lead to disagreements. 

Compared to the organization of the environmental movement in Artvin, in 
Çanakkale, the actors of the environmental movement do not share any 
common history that makes them familiar with the organizational strategies 
of the movement. In the beginning, the municipality, local NGOs, and 
some inhabitants tried to organize environmental mobilization to defend 
the water resources of Çanakkale because the proposed mining project is 
very close to Atikhisar dam. This group tried to organize by creating a 
common ground under an umbrella environmental organization such as Ida 
Solidarity Association. Yet, they could not achieve the kind of organization 
realized by the Artvin community because of a lack of participatory, 
transparent, and democratic mechanisms. For example, the people from 
this organization argue that those who migrated from İstanbul to Çanakkale 
were not local inhabitants of the city, so it was unnecessary for them to take 
part in decision-making mechanisms in the Kirazlı environmental 
movement (Interviews 19 and 25). 

In contrast to the Cerattepe environmental movement, in the Kirazlı 
environmental movement, city inhabitants had different motivations for 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [190] 

environmental mobilization and did not have a harmonious relationship 
with the place they defended. Therefore, they could not create a collective 
identity based on a place-based environmental struggle, and the place could 
not become a social movement space. For example, unlike the Artvin case, 
when police forces pressured the protesters holding the vigil in Kirazlı to 
stop, the people from the city centre did not come to Kirazlı to support the 
oppressed, and the oppressive atmosphere in the vigil area was not felt in 
the city centre. I maintain that when different inhabitants have different 
relations with the place they defend, reaching a common ground through a 
local umbrella organization becomes harder. Instead, the movement is 
maintained by different groups who do not have a common approach to 
environmental mobilization. 

Overall, place has a significant role in the organization and mobilization of 
an environmental movement and the continuity of grassroots 
environmental activism. I argue that when the inhabitants of the city create 
a place-based environmental struggle, it becomes possible to continue 
grassroots environmental activism under an umbrella organization by 
reaching a common ground. In place-based environmental struggles, the 
inhabitants come together to defend their livelihoods, culture, and history, 
all of which are embedded in the place where they live, as the case of Artvin 
shows. In this vein, the collective under a supra-political umbrella 
organization is essential to defend the place and create further alliances with 
bureaucratic actors and different political parties at the national scale. So, I 
argue that a supra-political movement does not mean a non-political or 
apolitical movement, but rather a way to strategically bring different 
ideological views together around a common cause. 

8. CONCLUSION 

In Turkey, since the rise of the Bergama anti-mining environmental 
movement in the early 1990s, many ecological distribution conflicts have 
emerged from the unequal distribution of environmental risks and burdens 
against the proposed/operated extraction projects. In some ecological 
conflicts, environmental mobilization continued through solidarity 
networks at the local level and in alliance with diverse actors at the national 
level, whereas others failed to maintain environmental mobilization for 
several years. For example, in the Artvin case, local inhabitants who had 
different understandings of environmentalism could be organized under an 
umbrella association with common ground and through democratic and 
participatory organization practices. On the contrary, for some 
environmental movements, it is hard to bring together diverse actors under 
an umbrella organization, as in the case of Kirazlı. Thus, the rise of 
grassroots activism and the conditions that enable an alliance of diverse 



[191] Üner 

 

actors deserve scholarly attention to debate the distinct features of these 
cases in terms of their organizational forms and mobilization capacities. 

Through this research, I tried to comparatively analyse the characteristics of 
anti-mining environmental movements in Turkey. The significance of this 
research lies in its attempt to show the ways/conditions under which 
environmental movements maintain grassroots activism by establishing 
common ground among diverse actors. On the one hand, the Cerattepe 
environmental movement was a very particular kind of example where the 
whole community had been organized under an umbrella organization for 
over two decades. In Turkey, only a few environmental struggles could 
achieve such organizational success. On the other hand, the Kirazlı 
environmental movement is a critical case to analyse because of the city’s 
location. Even if diverse inhabitants of the province could not reach a 
common ground in Çanakkale, the continuing environmental mobilization 
and mining opposition in Çanakkale deserve scholarly attention to analyse 
the evolution of environmental protests. 

Besides making some contributions, this research has its shortcomings and 
points to different areas for further research. Initially in this research, I 
focused on the organization of the city inhabitants to understand the 
conditions for realizing successful grassroots environmental activism. Yet, 
my comparative study did not analyse the conditions for how an 
environmental movement fails or becomes latent. Because of the pandemic, 
I had to choose two ongoing environmental movements. If I tried to 
choose a case that had become latent, it would be more difficult to conduct 
interviews. For further studies, it is critical to compare an environmental 
movement that has continued for several years with the latent 
environmental struggles of Turkey. Additionally, although I realized the 
importance of gender in sustaining environmental movements and how 
gender inequality impacts the organization of the movement, I did not have 
sufficient time to pursue these issues. For further studies, the gender aspect 
deserves scholarly attention for both bridging the gap between gender and 
environmental justice studies and understanding how gender inequality 
impacts environmental organization and mobilization in Turkey. 

Ethics Statement: I hereby confirm that this study complies with require-
ments of ethical approvals from the institutional ethics committee for the 
conduct of this research.  

Data Availability statement: The data used to support this research can-
not be shared openly to protect the privacy of study participants and is stat-
ed in the paper. 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [192] 

Conflict of Interest Statement: No potential conflict of interest was 
reported by the author. 

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