What happened
Yeniköy Kemerköy Enerji and the Milas Chamber of Agriculture held a workshop in Milas on the relationship between beekeeping and mine rehabilitation. The event examined whether rehabilitated mining areas in Milas and Muğla could provide useful habitat for bees and other pollinators while contributing to local beekeeping activity.
The workshop brought together beekeepers with scientific and practice-focused information. It also included discussion of on-the-ground experience and examples from outside Türkiye. Its focus was the possible role of beekeeping in making former mining sites ecologically and economically functional after rehabilitation.
Ufuk Şevket Kuloğlu, forestry engineer at Yeniköy Kemerköy Enerji, described rehabilitation work at the Hüsamlar site as an effort to re-establish ecological and economic systems. He said the assessment extends beyond the size of planted trees and plant species to consider the strengthening of wildlife and local production. The company has also used views from local beekeepers in work at the site.
According to Enerji Günlüğü, the workshop was intended to support the future of beekeeping, an important production activity and longstanding part of life in Milas and Muğla.
Why it matters
The discussion places pollinator habitat within the practical design of mine rehabilitation. At Hüsamlar, the approach described by Kuloğlu links planting and habitat creation with the needs of bees, beekeepers, wildlife and local production rather than treating planted area as the sole measure of progress.
For local beekeepers, rehabilitated land was discussed as a potential source of value for apiculture and pollinators. Their participation also gave site-level experience a role in the conversation on rehabilitation measures.
For practitioners, the workshop records a local example of rehabilitation being considered through both ecological recovery and economic use. It also points to the relevance of natural corridors and bee habitats when evaluating restored mining land.
Background
The event was organised under the title From Soil to the Future: Beekeeping and Mine Rehabilitation Workshop. It was hosted at the Milas Chamber of Agriculture and focused on restored mining areas in Milas and the wider Muğla province.
