In celebration of my birthday, I decided to raise funds for Turkey Mozaik Foundation’s soon-to-be launched “Sustainability Fund”. As many of you know, I am very passionate about creating and helping solutions that tackle the environmental issues that our planet and humanity faces. I founded Yesilist.com, Turkey’s first sustainable living platform to bring voice to environmental problems and means to become part of the solution. My home country Turkey is globally very important for biodiversity. Most of the land is covered by one of three biodiversity hotspots (Caucasus, Iran-Anatolian and Mediteterranean).

However;

-According to Yale Environmental Performance Index 2020, Turkey ranks 99th among 180 countries overall and 143th in terms of protected areas index. The country faces significant challenges with regard to biodiversity (both terrestrial and marine), fisheries, water resources, pollution and climate change.

-A new report published by the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry confirmed that Turkey will face severe droughts due to climate change in the next 30 years.

-A recent BBC report revealed that Turkey is the biggest importer of the UK’s excess recyclables, which unfortunately gets to be left on curb sides in southern part of Turkey.

These are only some headlines amongst many. All these indicate the emerging and timely need for a “sustainability fund” and our collective action. Issues like loss of biodiversity, pollution, climate change impact us globally and locally. I believe we owe it to our children and future generations an immediate action to tackle these imminent problems. I hope you will join me in supporting this cause.

You can read more about Turkey Mozaik Foundation on https://www.turkeymozaik.org.uk or follow on instagram @turkeymozaik.