Biotope mapping and the evaluating of Uzungöl Special Environment Protection Area regarding ecotourism

Ecotourism, as a term, can be described as relatively new when comparing with many other phenomena regarding nature, environment and ecology. Although ecotourism was created to be able to use natural and cultural resources for tourism in a sustainable way, it was also criticized especially because of the different approaches to the term and its implementations.In this study, a special environment protection area, Uzungöl in Çaykara district of Trabzon, was chosen as the research area. Main purpose of the study is to calculate ecotourism potential of the research area in an objective and scientific way. To do this, biotope classification regarding EUNIS was done first. Then, these biotopes were used to be able to create biotope map of the area using satellite images via GIS. Visitor (or ecotourist) profiles in the research area and their basic characteristics were identified owing to the questionnaires, which had been done during all seasons within 2 years. The area was evaluated according to 20 ecotourism identification criteria, which had been created before, via GIS and ecotourism potential maps of the area were created according to 3 different ecotourist profiles.In the last stage, the interim zone planning approaches were created regarding ecological sensitiveness, current infrastructure facilities and accessibility characteristics of the ecotourist profiles.