Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Thursday March 14, 2002
The Guardian 

Another British based construction firm has pulled out of a controversial dam project in Turkey and withdrawn its application for £68m of backing from British taxpayers. 
On the day before it faced a protesters' demonstration outside its headquarters in Carter Lane, in London, AMEC announced it was not going to build the Yusufeli Dam, on the River Coruh in Turkey. 

Following Balfour Beatty's decision to leave another consortium that was to build the Ilisu Dam in Turkey, attention of British protest groups had switched to AMEC. 

In a statement yesterday the company said its decision was commercial, and that it could get a better return on its capital elsewhere. Accordingly it had decided to abandon the project in north-east Turkey. 

The Ilisu and Yusufeli projects were similar. They each would have involved "drowning" environmentally sensitive areas, covering important archaeological remains, and involved the resettlement of a large number of people of ethnic minorities. In the case of Ilisu it was Kurds; in the present case, it is Georgians. An international coalition of objectors was demanding that proper resettlement and compensation be arranged and that environmental assessments of the damage from the dams be made and published. 

Among the wildlife species that would be affected in the River Coruh area are the brown bear and red vulture. The Yusufeli project would also have seen the loss of 18 towns and villages and the submerging of churches, fortresses and a citadel. 

In theory both dams could still be built, and the Turkish government has said that, if necessary, it will continue without any international backing. But with the state of the Turkish economy this seems unlikely at present. Some European construction companies are still involved but report that they require new partners. 

Hannah Griffiths, campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "We are delighted. Corporations planning to help construct large dam projects must [be] more transparent and accountable. They must adopt the international guidelines of the World Commission on Dams, and make their environmental impact assessments open to public scrutiny."