'We will employ 8,500 new team members'

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry İbrahim Yumaklı attended the 'Forests in the Climate Change Process' workshop held within the scope of the 4th Agriculture and Forestry Council at the General Directorate of Forestry. Minister Yumaklı stated that very important works were carried out to develop the green homeland during the AK Party governments and said, "I am saying this figure approximately in this period; close to 8 billion, more than 7.5 billion seeds and saplings were brought together with the soil. Thanks to this, today we have become a country that has an important forest asset in the world with 24.3 million hectares and is developing it. Again, one of the most important pillars of rural development is the forest and forestry sector. We have 57 projects. In this context, close to 34 billion liras of grants and support have been provided to 285 thousand families in the last 22 years. Not only wood is obtained from forests. Non-wood forest products also make a very important contribution to our economy. While it was 31 thousand tons in 2002, today we have obtained close to 1.2 million tons of non-forest products, a 39-fold increase. Our forest products sector will contribute around 1.4 billion dollars to our country's economy in 2024. Again, it is said that our country is ranked 2nd in the world league. "Our forests also have a very important place in honey production, where it is challenging for first place," he said.

'85 PERCENT OF FOREST FIRES ARE CAUSED BY HUMAN'

Emphasizing that 85 percent of forest fires are caused by humans, Minister Yumaklı said, "For this, your ability and capacity to combat forest fires must be extremely advanced. Turkey's water throwing capacity, which was 73 tons in 2002, has reached approximately 450 tons today with 27 planes and 105 helicopters. The number of water tenders has increased threefold to 1,766. Construction equipment has increased sixfold to 831. We have also put 2,742 fire first response vehicles and 14 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into service. We are the first country in Europe and the second country in the world to use UAVs in this field."

Yumaklı stated that personnel will be recruited to be employed within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and said, "I would like to share some good news from here in order to create a stronger defense line in terms of protecting the green homeland and to be more effective in combating forest fires due to the rapidly approaching and devastating climate change. We will be adding 8,500 new team members, including 3,105 fire workers, 3,477 support personnel and 150 engineers, to our own teams in the coming months. May it be auspicious in advance." (DHA)