A large extent of Anatolia, especially the inner Anatolia region, is generally known to be deprived of forest and covered by large steppe areas. These areas, which at first glance appear as natural steppes, are in fact mostly anthropogenic origin (Avc? 2013). Although large parts of these forests were converted to anthropogenic steppes today, relicts of the old forests are still present at remote highlands as forest islands (Uslu, 1959). Presently, there is no a detailed inventory of the relict forests in Inner Anatolia. In addition, the changes and threats that these forests are facing due to the changing population, agriculture and forestry politics, urbanization and migration from rural to urban are not known.
This project will focus on the forest remnants determined by an inventory by Uslu (1959), and more specifically to the ones in the provinces of Ankara, K?r?kkale, Konya, Aksaray, K?r?ehir and Çank?r? in the inner Anatolia. The study matches up with SGP?s priority areas of 27 (establishing data management which directly supports transitions to implementation in areas of biodiversity and soil degradation), 1 (supporting conservation by involvement of local people and cooperation in protected areas and its surrounding, ?., through declaration of legal status in key biodiversity areas), 7 (inventory of local/regional genetic resources), 8 (reducing negative impacts such as soil erosion, deforestation, flood, desertification on land, water, ecosystem services and biodiversity through supplementary measures and implementations), 11 (maintenance of the terrestrial ecosystem services through sustainable forestry and etc.).