Final Report October 2011 for the BBI-Matra/2008/015 ... - Vlindernet

Chapter 6 / Critical success factors
The assumption in the log frame, that the Turkish government is able and willing to adopt
the butterfly conservation priorities identified into national legislation and to enforce them,
became invalid during the course of the project.
During the period the project was being implemented, a major conflict developed
between the Ministry of Environment & Forestry (now the Ministry of Environment, Forestry
and Water Affairs) and NGOs, with the result that the Ministry will no longer work or
cooperate with almost all NGOs. There are two main reasons for this:
� The Ministry’s policy on the distribution of licenses for Hydro Electric Schemes(HES):
NGOs are describing the HES as the single biggest threat to natural areas. There have been
many court cases contesting specific schemes which have resulted in the Ministry and NGOs
being on opposing sides.
� The new Nature Law: this was initially prepared under GEF2 and with the support of
the EU, but now includes many changes which do not reflect the contributions of NGOs. As
it stands, although the Law includes some improvements which bring Turkish legislation
more in line with that in the EU, it also helps the HES projects by removing some legal
obstacles. For this reason more than 80 NGOs are opposing it.
Thus, although relationships between DKM and technical staff at the Ministry remain good,
the Ministry’s general policy has made it impossible for it to be officially represented in
project activities.
In the context of the project, this conflict and lack of active involvement has had little
effect as it did not prevent the successful completion of all activities. However, in the longterm
it is important that the project outputs are used to facilitate effective conservation and
for this a change in government policy, making nature conservation a priority, is needed.
The project’s most important critical success factor was the strength of its team. Despite a
mid-project period when there was no project assistant, regular voluntary support from the
whole DKM team made it possible for the project manager to share tasks and continue to
implement activities as planned, thus ensuring the successful completion of the project and
all its outputs.
DE VLINDERSTICHTING & BCE 2011 | Butterfly Conservation in Turkey – Final report 2011 59