Restoration Project for a Degraded Urban Ecosystem in Gölbaşı Flats, Ankara. A Precarious Equilibrium

Abstract

Gölbaşı Flats, a wetland located in Ankara (Turkey), has been neglected and mismanaged for decades. Surrounded by human activities encroaching on its area, it has received high amounts of pollution, and its ecosystem is now degraded. Works on a restoration project for the area started in 2023, aiming to radically transform the interactions between the wetland and the city: from an open-access natural resource used primarily as landfill to an area in which both the freshwater ecosystem and human activities can coexist. While this project is presented as an improvement from an ecological viewpoint, it nonetheless attracted criticism from environmentalists who claimed that it gave too much space to recreational activities, lacked a clear management plan and would still be detrimental to the ecosystem. While urban green areas designed around good ecological practices may become essential for maintaining biodiversity in an increasingly urbanized world, this article points to the difficulty of finding a new equilibrium between the artificial and the natural in the densely populated capital city of Ankara, particularly in a middle-income country where post-materialist and environmentalist concerns are not yet dominant.