![[Municipality flag]](../images/t/tr-48-or.gif)
Last modified: 2016-10-30 by ivan sache
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Flag of Ortaca - Image by Jens Pattke, 5 June 2015
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The flag of Ortaca is white with the municipality's emblem. "Belediyesi" means "Municipality".
Tomislav Šipek, 28 May 2013
Dalyan
![[Municipality flag]](../images/t/tr-48-dl.gif)
Flag of Dalyan - Image by Jens Pattke, 29 May 2015
Dalyan (4,848 inhabitants in 2000) is located between Marmaris and Fethiye.
The flag of Dalyan (photo) was white with the municipality's emblem. "Belediyesi" means "Municipality".
The emblem of the former municipality featured a Lycian rock tomb and a loggerhead sea turtle.
The ancient city of Caunos stands midway along the channel facing Dalyan. Settlement here is believed to date from 3000 BC by Caunos, the son of Miletos and it later grew into a major port on the border between Lycia and Caria. Sprawling over a broad sloping site overlooking the sea and the delta, the principal monuments to be seen in Caunos are the Acropolis surrounded by city walls, a theatre, four temples, an agora, stoa, nymphain, baths, palestra, churches and a cistern.
The imposing Lycian rock tombs with their facades curved into the form of temples were the last resting place of the kings of Caunos. The city had two harbours, one for military use and the other for merchants.
Inscriptions discovered on the nymphain have been found to cite customs regulations and have thrown valuable light on the economic life of the city. The Lycians developed this form of art to perfection, no doubt facilitated by the soft limestone of the region.
The quality of stonemasonry of the Lycian people is noteworthy and is especially significant in the construction of tombs. Today the entire landscape of Lycia is still dotted with their fascinating funerary monuments. The most recent count has revealed one thousand and eighty-five examples still intact, rock-cut tombs being the most common form. Lycia is famous for the sheer number of tombs and their quality.
[Blue Cruise Bodrum]
The İztuzu beach (aka Turtle Beach) is protected nationally since 1988 as part of the Köyceğiz-Dalyan Special Environmental Protection Area (SPA) by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Terms of the protection were influenced by June Haimoff's proposal for national park status and by campaigning by other conservationists, including the Turkish NGO DHKD.
The Turtle sanctuary was set up to assist these injured turtles on their road to recovery. Whilst it is primarily set up for the endangered loggerhead turtles the sanctuary will also look after the more common green sea turtles. Located on Turtle Beach, the turtle sanctuary is ideally located for the purpose it was set up for. The premises, if you can call them that, consist of no more than a metal frame with a roof on the top. There are no in-fill panels or walls and it is totally open. Under the roof are numerous large holding tanks used to house the turtles whilst they are recovering.
[Dalyan Guide]
İztuzu is the beach that was famously saved from development in the late 1980s thanks to the efforts of "Kaptan" June Haimoff, the Englishwoman who lived in a hut here from the mid-1970s (and still lives in the area). She managed to see off a plan to turn this 5 km of unspoilt paradise – and nesting site for loggerhead turtles – into a resort with large-scale hotel, yacht marina and dozens of holiday villa.
Yet 25 years after the doughty June, now 91, battled with an international property consortium to win special environmental protection status for the beach – the bulldozers were lumbering into position as she fought – the 5 km delta spit could once again be under threat.
Changes to local government boundaries this year have seen Dalyan and İztuzu beach come under the aegis of nearby Ortaca district, and the licence to run beach facilities being sold to Oruç, a Turkish/British company of carpet merchants and property developers. June – and her Turtle Conservation Foundation, started in 2011, the year she was awarded an MBE for her environmental work – are, of course, not taking this lying down. There is an online petition calling for cancellation of the licence.
Present regulations mean İztuzu beach is out of bounds at night between May and September, and no umbrellas or beach towels are allowed on a crucial strip close to the waves, where turtle eggs lie incubating for several months. With a natural paradise this precious, for humans and reptiles, concern at commercial involvement is understandable.
[The Guardian, 25 September 2014]
Tomislav Šipek & Ivan Sache, 20 March 2016
