Haliç, in Europe, is known as the golden horn . This name comes from the Greek myths.
Zeus one of the many gods in Olympus falls in love with the king of Agros’es daughter İo . Hera the wife of Zeus becomes furious and turns İo into a cow and she puts a fly into her head . And that’s how the legend starts. Plus, this is the same legend that created Bosporus. When İo tries to run from the fly she breaks the ground and then the ground fills with water . And like that Halic takes the name Bosporus (meaning the cow passage). İo finally comes to Halic and stays there. A baby girl is born on a hill. She is called Keros short for Keroessa which means ” horn”. This name is given to the place we now know as Halic. Because the land is seen as sacred people also started calling it ”the golden horn”.
Halic was always known as the Golden Horn in the middle ages. Some historians think that the reason for Halic being really rich is because there was a lot of trade so that’s why its called the Golden Horn. Like how the Nil gives life to Mesopotamia Halic gives life to Istanbul. To be in control of a place like Halic is like to be in control of the world’s whole trade system.
What did we do?
In the year of 1911 when industries started to develop in Turkey some machines started to appear in the shores of Halic mostly using electric and cole to work these constructs harmed the air . After that more and more factories and workplaces started to appear thus making Halic dirty.
İn the other hand there are a lot of domestic waste centers that connect to Halic. People who live in Halic get disturbed by the smell of all the waste.
Every year 263.000 m3 of dirt fills Halic. Basically, Halic got full of dirt. The place that was clean suddenly turned into a cesspool.
Ecological Lessons for a Fair City
The first known intervention to this situation was in 1940. We used cleaning boats to clean the Halic mud. The collected mud gets transported to the Marmara Sea. By 1994, the Golden Horn had become a political problem awaiting a critical solution.
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in 1994 the environmental management company (ISTAC) with more than 40 researchers started a project called the golden horn. We found the sources that has been polluting the golden horn by tacking 20 samples of the water and from the mud. We then proceeded to find ways to get rid of the pollution. We found ways to get rid of the mud or evaluate it. For the first time in turkey they made a mud dam. The solids in the mud stays in the dam while the mud goes in and returns as clean water to the golden horn. The mud that is stored in the dam area today has become one of Turkey’s largest entertainment centers (Istanbul Vialand theme park). Everyday 11million cubic meters of clean and fresh water from Bosphorus enters the golden horn. As a result of the prevention of waste water, it was observed that algae formed at the place where the streams connect to the golden horn. When a contaminated water environment is cleaned the formation of algae is a sign that life has started. Now there are 48 kinds of fish that live in the gulf of golden horn. It has become one of the wetlands where migratory birds lodge and you can even do watersports. This project in the golden horn was deemed worthy of first prize in the metropolis awards given by the world metropolitan municipality union in 2002, considering their efforts to revitalize the historical environment on the shores of the golden horn.
Being a metropolitan city after the 21. Century
For the past 15 years Golden Horn has been expanding. In order to preserve the beauties of our Istanbul has two seas, which passes through the Bosphorus and has the Golden Horn, it cleans the sea, undersea and beaches. Where 16million people live and where about 50milllion tourists come and go. Knows how important the water is. They scan 515 meters of ground by 83 different points. ISTAC finds the waste and sends it to recycling companies. And ISTAC ensures that this method is sustainable. 5 million square meters of sea surface is cleaned with sea surface cleaning boats (DYT), which are completely developed with domestic production. Water pollution problems are effective first at the local level, then at the regional level and then at the global level. Basically, water is our past and our future. TAKE CARE OF WATER.
Heritage of Humanity
The heritage of humanity actually lays in the trash. The reason for that is that plastic can stay in nature for hundreds of years, İt’s one of the biggest reasons for environmental pollution. Every year the human population leaves about 300 million tons of plastic in nature. It is very important that these plastics get recycled. This is a picture I took in the deep forest. Instead of a tree do you think it better for a car to leave its mark in the forest?
The Danger Facing Us
The rising heat, the contagious diseases, trees getting cut, ice melting and the destruction that comes with. Here is a quick summary of what’s going to happen to us and this is going to happen faster than we think. In the history of the earth if we think about more than half of the carbon that was released in the last 30 years this would happen to us in one generation. And to prevent this we have one generation.
That generation is us….
