2020 Blue Flag Awards Announced; TURKEY INCREASED ITS NUMBER OF BLUE FLAG BEACHES AND RANKED 3RD IN THE WORLD!

486 beaches, 22 marinas and 7 yachts have earned the right to receive the Blue Flag. The International Blue Flag Jury has announced the 2020 Blue Flag awards. This year, the Blue Flag will fly at 486 beaches, 22 marinas and 7 individual yachts in Turkey.

In our country, the Blue Flag Program, carried out under the coordination of the Turkish Foundation for Environmental Education (TÜRÇEV), on whose Board our Association also sits, is implemented internationally in 49 countries worldwide under the coordination of the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE).

The Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, announced the ranking of the top five countries among all those implementing the Blue Flag Program in 2020, and reported that it would announce the number of beaches and marinas earning the award on June 10. Accordingly, Turkey once again ranked 3rd in the world by number of beaches. Spain is in first place and Greece in second. Behind Turkey, Italy is in 4th place, followed by France in 5th.

Following this success achieved by our country, the Chair of the Turkish Foundation for Environmental Education, Rıza Epikmen, said the following:
"Tourism is among the leading sectors negatively affected worldwide due to the Covid-19 pandemic. By contrast, the \"natural environment\" was one of the rare areas that was positively affected. In this sense, the Blue Flag eco-label, which embodies criteria for protecting the environment and public health and is the most widely known and trusted by the public worldwide, will play an important role. In coastal tourism, which is predominantly based on sea, sand and sun, we believe that the International Blue Flag awards announced during this normalization preparation period will contribute to people's tourism choices. During this period in which environmental, health and hygiene conditions are kept at the highest level, the microbiological monitoring of seawater at Blue Flag beaches, the cleanliness of beaches and their facilities, and the inclusion of numerous criteria regarding life safety and environmental management, as well as keeping all these criteria under inspection, will constitute important areas of assurance for the international tourism community. Moreover, during the Covid-19 process, a number of additional public health criteria envisaged by the competent authorities will also be applied. Our country's success in the world in terms of the number of Blue Flags provides an important advantage in this regard.

As the Turkish Foundation for Environmental Education, we wish for a healthy and successful 2020 season with our Blue Flags flying along our coasts."

The Blue Flag Program was launched when the European Union declared 1987 the year of the environment, and its starting point was to protect public health and to raise awareness of this through environmental education. In our country, it began to be implemented in 1993.

Blue Flag beaches have 33 important criteria. Some of the mandatory criteria include: conducting seawater analyses at 15-day intervals during the season, the adequacy of wastewater treatment plants, the protection of sensitive natural areas, the availability of lifeguards and first aid equipment, an emergency plan, facilities for the disabled, waste separation, and environmental education and information.

In addition to the Blue Flag criteria, the necessary measures will be taken for our beaches, marinas and yachts on the basis of the matters determined by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, and our Scientific Board in the fight against Covid-19. This year we will implement a number of additional criteria regarding distances between sun loungers and measures for the hygiene of facilities and equipment.

"There can be no human health or sustainable tourism without environmental health" will be our main theme for 2020.

(The current list is also available at www.mavibayrak.org.tr)