Investigation of mining enterprises in Isparta in respect to forest protection

This study was conducted as a "Master's Thesis" from 2016 to 2017 at S?leyman Demirel University, Institute of Science, Department of Forest Engineering. The purpose of the study was to assess the mines operating in the forest areas in Isparta from the perspective of the forest protection and explore the impacts of the mines on the forests.There are 201 licensed mines within the provincial boundaries of Isparta. 52 of the mines are located within the area of Isparta Forest Department, 99 in E?irdir and 50 in S?t??ler (to July 2016). 63% of the mines are authorized for marble, 15% for limestone while the remaining 22% for other metals. Majority of the authorizations are held by private companies (88%) whereas the public bodies have only a limited number of authorizations (12%). The highest number of authorizations is in E?irdir Forest Department with 39 licenses. This is followed by Isparta, Yalva? and ?and?r Forest Directorates. 436 authorizations have been obtained for 201 licensed mines. Some of the licensed mines may have multiple authorizations such as authorization for infrastructure and mining. The number of the authorization applications has increased substantially since 2009 and the duration of the authorizations usually range from 7 to 10 years. As regards the stand types in the active mining sites, majority of the mines are located within the degraded forest lands.It was observed that the mines had several negative impacts at different degrees on forest vegetation, wild life, protected areas, agricultural lands, settlement areas, water regime, soil structure and transportation in addition to their adverse environmental and visual impacts.