Situation of illegal grazing in Turkish forest from past to present

A total of 21.2 million hectares that constitute 27.7 % of the land in Turkey are forests. 54.4 % of the forests in Turkey are constituted by needled trees and 45.6 % are by broad-leaved trees. Forest fires are the main factor which threatens forest. Besides that, several abiotic and biotic factors affect Turkish forests. One of the most important factors of them is goat damage and illegal grazing. Goat is a natural element of the Mediterranean ecosystem in Turkey by vegetation, topography and climatic conditions. Especially, stony, sloping and uneven areas don’t enable any animal except goat. Grazing is very important factor in shaping vegetation types in the Mediterranean ecosystem. Grazing of rangelands cause reduced 2-3 times over their yields. For this reason, openings in the forests and maquis areas are preferred for grazing by shepherds. These stands are grazed mostly by hair goats and important damages occur on vegetation by this feeding. Rangelands consist 18.8 % of total area in Turkey and most of them are located on sloping and uneven stands and also 90 % of them are on degrade areas. It is easily seen that rangeland areas are becoming less year by year. Turkey had 44.3 million hectares rangeland areas in 1935, it reduced to 14.6 million hectares were in 2009. Recently years, this ratio was estimated less. Large forest stands are potential for forest products, however insufficient of high quality rangelands become an obstacle for stockbreeding in rangelands. For this reason, overgrazing pressure occurs in forest and maquis stands. Forest ecosystem and maquis areas are damaged by illegal grazing. According to official records, since 1954 till 2011 284.558 illegal grazing crime recorded and approximately 31 million animals were included related these crimes. It is seen that contrary to increasing of population, ovine (sheep or goat) number is decreasing year after year. Relating to this decreasing, number of crimes about illegal grazing is also becoming less. In this study, situation of illegal grazing and changes from past to present were defined by tables and figures.