Zafer Kizilkaya

In collaboration with local fishing cooperatives and Turkish authorities, Zafer Kizilkaya expanded Turkey’s network of marine protected areas (MPAs) along 310 miles of the Mediterranean coast. The newly designated areas were approved by the Turkish government in August 2020 and include an expansion of the MPA network by 135 square miles (350 sq. km) of no trawling/no purse seine, and an additional 27 square miles (70 sq. km) of no fishing zones. Turkey’s marine ecosystem has been severely degraded by overfishing, illegal fishing, tourism development, and the effects of climate change—and these protected areas help mitigate these challenges.

The Turquoise Coast

Turkey sits at the geographic and cultural crossroads of Europe and Asia. The country’s southwest coast, where the Mediterranean and Aegean seas meet, is known for its exceptional beauty. Nicknamed the Turquoise Coast, the region’s crown jewel is the 62-mile-long Gökova Bay, which once teemed with resident fish and marine life.

Unfortunately, the Mediterranean is the most overfished sea in the world, and threats to Turkey’s fragile marine ecosystem are acute. In addition to overfishing—both legal and illegal—communities on Turkey’s shores are facing plastic pollution, unsustainable coastal development and tourism infrastructure, invasive species, and warming seas. The combined force of these various threats has had a profound effect on both marine life and the region’s fishing economy.

Destructive fishing along the Turquoise Coast has depleted local fish populations to staggering levels; it has threatened the breeding grounds of sandbar sharks and destroyed critical habitat for the endangered Mediterranean monk seal and loggerhead turtles. Ghost nets and abandoned fishing lines are ubiquitous and do not break down, routinely entangling or being ingested by animals.

Further, invasive rabbitfish and carnivorous lionfish and pufferfish have entered the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. These species pose a serious threat to the balance of marine life in the region because they reproduce quickly, prey on native species, overgraze marine vegetation, and have almost no natural predators in the Mediterranean. Marine biologists have called the pufferfish and lionfish “the most damaging invasive fish species known to science.”

The net result for local fishing communities is severely reduced catches, with the vast majority of fish caught being unpopular, invasive species.

A Marine Enthusiast and Advocate

Zafer Kizilkaya, 53, is the president and founder of Akdeniz Koruma Dernği (the Mediterranean Conservation Society), which he launched in 2012. A civil engineer by training, he grew up in Ankara watching Jacques Cousteau documentaries and became enamored with the sea. Soon after college, he decided to become an underwater photographer and commercial deep-sea diver. He spent several years as a marine researcher and photographer in Indonesia and led expedition teams in the tropical Pacific. On returning to Turkey, he was shocked at the level of marine degradation in Gökova Bay and committed himself to saving Turkey’s waters from destruction.

A Problem-solver and Natural-born Communicator

Working with local fishing communities, in 2012 Zafer established Turkey’s first community-managed MPA, in Gökova Bay. Under his leadership, the bay’s severely degraded marine ecosystem made a tremendous comeback.

Building on the successful Gökova Bay model, in late 2017 Zafer and his team decided to make the case to the Turkish government to expand the MPA network southeastward along the coastline, at the heart of the Turquoise Coast. He prepared himself for a tough and bureaucratic campaign—new MPA designations are only approved by the government every four years and the scale he was seeking was larger in scope than the first MPA.

Zafer invited government ministers and fishermen from other parts of the coast to visit Gökova Bay and witness the rebound of marine ecosystems from the first MPA. He worked with fishing cooperatives to gather data on current fish stocks, including personal monitoring underwater, then presented evidence to cooperatives and government ministers to suggest delineation of the new MPA. Intent on building strong relationships with all stakeholders, Zafer worked closely with fishing cooperatives and engaged them actively in the campaign, providing outreach and education and connecting them with officials charged with designing the MPA boundaries.

Many fishermen were unaware of previous MPA boundaries, so Zafer printed leaflets to distribute to those caught fishing within the MPA. He also implemented an innovative program to train local fishermen as marine rangers. These rangers have bodycams—whose images are admissible in court—but do not have powers of arrest. When illegal fishing is observed, rangers can alert the Coast Guard.

At the same time, Zafer devised clever ways to decrease the invasive lionfish population. He encouraged local chefs to use lionfish in recipes, set up booths at seafood festivals promoting lionfish, used celebrity chefs in a canny marketing strategy to increase the culinary appeal of the species, and even developed recipes that were endorsed by a Michelin-starred chef. He examined the entire supply chain for fishermen and sought to address issues at each end, including training fishermen to remove the lionfish’s toxic spines before distributing the catch to restaurants.

Expanding the MPAs

Zafer’s efforts yielded success in August 2020, when the government announced the expansion of the MPA network southeastward along 310 miles of the Turkish coastline. The MPA network grew by 135 square miles (350 sq. km) for no trawling/no purse seine, and an additional 27 square miles (70 sq. km) for no fishing zones. This grassroots campaign ultimately protected marine habitats and species and bolstered the fishing communities of the Turquoise Coast. In the process, Turkey has demonstrated to the wider region that effective marine conservation is within reach. Today, marine life in the region is rebounding. This is the first Goldman Prize for Turkey.