15.2.3. Maintain and extend current ecosystems' biodiversity

In 2025, METU worked directly to maintain and extend the ecosystems on its campus and their biodiversity, including threatened steppe and wetland habitats.

Protecting campus ecosystems

The METU campus contains the METU Forest, Central Anatolian steppe and the Lake Eymir wetland. Parts of the campus are designated 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-degree natural protected areas; all work in the METU Forest is carried out under Forestry Law No. 6831 with the Ankara Regional Directorate of Forestry, and with permission from the Culture and Nature Conservation Board for protected areas. METU's Directorate of Afforestation and Landscaping maintains the forest, with technical support from the Central Anatolian Forestry Research Institute on forest pests.

Archive photograph: tree planting at METU.

This work follows METU Strategic Plan 2023–2027 (approved on 26 April 2022), Objective O4.2, which commits METU to protecting the 'rich forest, steppe, sea, and lake ecosystem integrity and biodiversity' of its campuses. Strategy S2: 'Researching the ecological and biodiversity values of our campuses and promoting them by considering the protection-use balance, continuing and increasing forestation efforts and the tree planting festival.'

On 11 November 2025, Türkiye's National Afforestation Day, METU once again planted saplings on its campus, carrying on the green tradition of Kemal Kurdaş, founder of the METU Forest, for a campus that 'breathes'. In its 70th anniversary year, METU also committed to keep planting with its alumni, students and friends across Türkiye (METU, 11 November 2025).

https://www.instagram.com/p/DQ6zQC2DEbg/

Research and monitoring (EKOSAM)

Its pond work continues in TRANSPONDER (February 2024 – January 2027, Biodiversa+), with partners in seven European countries, which is developing standard and citizen-science protocols for monitoring biodiversity in ponds and pondscapes and building a stakeholder network to bring them into conservation policy.

https://ekosam.metu.edu.tr/tr/transponder

Citizen-science baseline

The 2025 Tür Say! survey recorded the species living on campus, giving a baseline for protecting them.