Study on sustainable urban development framework and nature conservation in the area of Istanbul-Beykoz

Sustainability is defined in Urban Sciences Dictionary, as the "environmentalist world-view," if referred briefly. As emphasized explicitly in this dictionary by professor Ruşen Keleş, the issue of environmental and natural sources, namely "Nature Conservation," has great importance for the maintenance of sustainability, whose above-mentioned explanation and several other definitions are covered in full within the scope of this thesis. Despite the fact that Turkey has been a party to many agreements at international platforms in terms of "nature conservation" for the sake of assuring sustainability, the country suffers many problems originating from the inability to indigenize this awareness. Although "protected area announcement," which is one of the sharpest steps for the matter of nature conservation in our country, is essential, it unfortunately fails to be adequate. Namely, cancellation of available plans following the protected area announcements, engagement of temporary housing conditions until the protection plan is completed and inability to produce plans due to the fact that this process lasts longer than anticipated constitute far greater risks for these areas. Additionally, corporate authority chaos and a polycracy-like status suffered in the protected areas, legal loopholes in the current legislation – legal and administrative problems, in short – as well as centralist pressure, and production of plans which are not holistic and strategic but merely physical are among the factors that make it difficult to protect these areas. The mentioned factors create an unsustainable environment day by day, especially in Istanbul. Within the scope of this thesis, the above-stated problems are evaluated via Beykoz, an area which was deemed important with regard to the environmental sustainability in the 1/100 thousand scale Istanbul environmental plan, also a region which was announced as a 'protected area' in 1995; and the unsustainability of the current situation is tried to be explained with the help of scenarios. Again within the context of this study, problematic areas like private forest areas, 2B lands taken out of the forest boundaries, water basins and agricultural fields are handled; and regarding these areas, suggestions from legal-administrative perspectives are submitted. As a conclusion, an evaluation for all the protected areas is carried out on the basis of the current planning system. Key words: Sustainability, Nature Conservation, Private Forest, 2B, Beykoz