KARAKOVAN HASAT
Urla, Izmir
2018
is a pilot project situated on 25 decares of forest land in Kadıovacık, Urla, designed to prototype an ecological economy rooted in biodiversity conservation. Rather than imposing traditional agricultural structures, the model is entirely dictated by the land’s existing flora—harvesting naturally thriving species with a forager’s precision.
The project’s operational framework transformed seasonal cycles into a diversified portfolio of over forty products, including flours, essential oils, and medicinal creams. By integrating low-energy distillation and drying processes directly on-site, the production cycle remains closed-loop and synchronized with the land’s rhythms.
This approach demonstrates how economic viability can serve as a direct catalyst for conservation, a shift from extractive land use to regenerative stewardship. It reframes biodiversity not as a resource to be depleted, but as a living system sustained through a design of reciprocity—where the health of the forest and the success of the model are one and the same.