Sehmus Erginoglu poses with a photo of the trees he helped restore. (All pictures by Murat Bayram/MEE)
A beautiful story to carry one’s legacy and to make Miss Rumphius proud: a man in Turkey has single-handedly restored a forest in his hometown. Sehmus Erginoglu, now in his early 70s, decided to do something about an area of wasteland in his home city of Mardin in southern Turkey.
According to the Middle East Eye, he began by clearing out rubbish from the site about 30 years ago, and then he installed water pipes and eventually started to plant saplings. Today the site is home to a small forest of around 11,000 trees, with thousands more planted in areas nearby.
Sehmus Erginoglu
In a world breeding so much intolerance and hatred for the “other” inside Turkey and the Middle East at large, let’s take Erginoglu’s example and make the world a bit better than the way we found it.
As a teen in French class in Canada, we read “The Man Who Planted Trees” (L’homme qui plantait des arbres). The story of Elzéard Bouffier is an allegorical tale by French author Jean Giono, published in 1953, which tells the story of one shepherd’s long and successful effort to reforest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps, near Provence, throughout the first half of the 20th century.
Erginoglu has taken the cue: “I have built 50 spring water fountains in Mardin. I have only planted 10,000 saplings in Savurkapı, and I keep going further. I come every day to water the saplings,” he told Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper.
His only request to visitors was not to damage the trees.
Turkey’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli has shared showing him as an example in the public eyes. But we do know that forest protectors in Turkey have been murdered. And you can go to jail if you are reporting about toxicity in the soil.
The story of Erginoglu is an inspiration for ecological regeneration brought about by man. And if you are wondering Miss Alice Rumphius is a children’s story about a woman who sought a way to make the world more beautiful and found it in planting lupines.
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