Save Hasankeyf-Stop the Ilisu dam

The 12,000-year-old settlement of Hasankeyf is located on the banks of the Tigris River in western  Turkey, not far from the border with Syria. The canyons of Hasankeyf are as old as the Earth and the caves that shape them are as old as the human being. The tremendous cultural and natural heritage of Mesopotamia is in great danger due to the construction of the Ilisu Dam on the Turkish stretch of the Tigris River.

Designed to impound an area of more than 310 km², it would impact the right to food and water of thousands of people in and around the planned reservoir as well as downstream. It also threatens precious riverine ecosystems hosting numerous endangered species, hundreds of archaeological sites including the ancient town of Hasankeyf in Turkey, as well as the Mesopotamian Marshes in Iraq.

The Ilisu-Project  in south-eastern Turkey is one of the world's most controversial dam projects

Downstream countries have their own concerns about Ilisu  and Turkey's other planned dams. In Iraq, there are thousands of water refugees every year, many villages are depopulated because of this. Turkey claims to release 500 cubic meters of river water downstream each second from its dams, but officials Iraqi say the actual amount is closer to 200 cubic meters per second. Iraq and Syria have built their own big dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers but Turkey's dams dominate the rivers, especially the Euphrates.

When the 27-billion-cubic-meter-capacity Atatürk Dam opened on that river in 1990, it reduced the mighty waterway to a trickle for one month. In the Mesopotamian marshes of southern Iraq, which once covered one-fifth of modern Iraq's landmass and which have hosted human civilization since ancient Sumer, the flow of the Euphrates is now sometimes as low as 18 cubic meters per second, compared with the 90 cubic meters per second required to sustain the local population of Marsh Arabs, according to Iraqi officials. There won't be any more marsh in Iraq if Ilısu and the other remaining dams in Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Project are built.

Iraqi officials estimate that the project will dehydrate 670,000 hectares of arable land in the country. But the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are now so low that salty water from the Persian Gulf has rushed in. This has raised river salinity to levels that are unhealthy for marsh wildlife, not to mention the Marsh Arabs, who now buy tanks of potable water in nearby towns and ferry them back to their homes in the marsh. Agriculture around Iraq's marshes is also suffering from the lower river levels, causing mass urban migration and dozens of conflicts each year.The water belongs to all people living along the   river. Rivers unite-dams divide.
  

Stop Ilisu dam, is a big responsibility of the Turkish government to protect this place. Dams displace, destroy community ties, and biodiversity, and are not a form of clear energy.Dams life span is 70-100 years, and for that they will kill thousands of year civilization.The Tigris is the place where civilization itself started, with the Sumerians. Are they willing to give it away to be dammed and destroyed? Hasankeyf  is the only place in the world capable of providing nine of UNESCO’s  criterion by having both natural wealth and history of a 12,000 years. I highly recommend visiting Hasankeyf, now is time, go Hasankeyf, quick before Hasankeyf goes.