Island refuge

Wildlife conservation in Turkey does not get a high priority. Yet the country lies in a key location for birds migrating from Asia and Africa to Europe. Wildlife reserves exist but often have worryingly little support. So the development of Lake Kuyucuk in the Kars province of eastern Turkey as a wildlife reserve for thousands of birds of more than two hundred species, while also supporting local communities, has won the prize for European Destination of Excellence, a competition organised by the European Commission and Turkey's ministry of tourism and culture to promote tourism and sustainability. The prize, which has no financial value, nonetheless highlights the lake and Kars region as a centre of conservation and nature tourism and helps raise revenue for residents around the lake, increasing motivation to protect the visiting wildlife. A key part of the submission was the creation of a new island in the lake. A dirt road formerly bisected the lake — a route to Armenia which has for many years been unused because of the political difficulties between the two countries. As relationships have recently thawed, conservationists were concerned that the road would begin to be used again. But the road has instead been converted into an island where birds can roost and breed safely. The 200 metre-long island was constructed with strong support form the Kars governor, Mehmet Ufuk Erden, in just two months and has made conservation history. It is the first man-made island in landlocked eastern Turkey and is larger than Feature Galatasary Island in Istanbul. Creation of the island also reconnected the lake waters previously bisected by the road. Protection boundaries for the lake were established in October last year, as the culmination of conservation efforts carried out since 2004. During a meeting in last March, the Kars governor gave the go-ahead to convert the road into an island bird reserve. The local team had the support of Sean Anderson, a wetland restoration expert at California State University and Stanford conservation biologist, Cagan Sekercioglu. The construction work was completed in May. The lake has a surface area of 219 hectares and a circumference of 7.8 kilometres so is a substantial feature in the mostly dry eastern Turkey. Sekercioglu said: " We are very thankful to the Kars governor for enabling this groundbreaking restoration project in Turkey. " An artificial island in eastern Turkey created by a team of biologists …