Identifying key biodiversity areas in Turkey: a multi-taxon approach

Key biodiversity areas (KBAs) are sites of global importance for biodiversity conservation. Their selection is based on standard criteria applied through a bottom-up, iterative process involving local stakeholders. This article presents the results of a study that applied the KBA methodology in Turkey. The KBA method uses four criteria: (1) globally threatened species; (2) restricted-range species; (3) congregations of species that concentrate at particular sites during some stage in their life cycle; and (4) biome-restricted species assemblages. In Turkey, we applied these criteria to 10,214 species of eight taxonomic groups: plants, dragonflies, butterflies, freshwater fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. We identified 313 KBAs in Turkey, 303 of which trigger the KBA criteria for one or more taxonomic groups at the global scale. The remaining 10 sites trigger the KBA criteria at the regional scale only. These 303 globally important KBAs in Turkey cover 20,456,884 hectares, 26% of the country. Turkey’s natural landscapes, holding globally important biodiversity, are under immense threat and declining rapidly, both in quality and quantity. The nationwide threat assessment of KBAs revealed that dams, irrigation and drainage projects (i.e. water policies) form the main threat to Turkey’s biodiversity. Irrigation and drainage projects affect 225 KBAs and dams have an effect on at least 185 sites. KBAs raise attractive possibilities as being core areas where ecologically responsible governance models can be demonstrated, building on scientific and indigenous knowledge. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group