What happened

Türkiye’s Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change has announced a seabed-sediment removal programme for Fethiye Bay under the Zero Waste Blue initiative. According to the ministry, two dredging vessels will extract 16,268,925 cubic metres of material accumulated across approximately 600 hectares.

The ministry puts the average height of the deposits at 2.7 metres and says the works are intended to deliver an average water depth of 3.4 metres in the bay. It describes the sediment as covering the bay floor and affecting natural life.

The announcement also covers a fixed mooring management system in the Fethiye-Göcek Special Environmental Protection Area. In the initial Göcek deployment, 896 mooring points and 876 anchoring blocks have been installed across 17 coves, providing capacity for 856 vessels.

Rather than anchoring freely, boat users are directed to locations equipped with the fixed system. The Turkish Environment Agency began the wider mooring initiative in 2024, the ministry said.

Why it matters

The combined programme links dredging with operating rules for vessels in a protected coastal area. For boat owners, charter operators and tourism businesses, access to the designated berths is managed through the DERİA mobile reservation service.

Users may stay for up to three days in one cove, while their cumulative stay across Fethiye and Dalaman coves is capped at 11 days. These restrictions are intended to standardise use of the coves and manage vessel movements, according to the ministry.

The ministry says the fixed-mooring approach is designed to avoid anchor deployment and reduce damage to the seabed, including seagrass habitats. It has also introduced vessel waste-collection services and daily surface-cleaning patrols.

What operators should do

Marine operators using the Göcek coves should check whether their intended berth is within the managed network, arrange reservations through DERİA, and plan itineraries around the per-cove and total-stay limits. They should also account for the available waste-collection arrangements when operating in the area.

Operational capacity

DERİA, an affiliate of the Turkish Environment Agency established to operate the systems and provide waste services to marine craft, currently deploys 14 mooring boats, four marine inspection boats, one service boat, one waste-collection vessel and one surface-cleaning vessel in Göcek, the ministry said.

Source: Türkiye’s Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change.