General Information about Ataturk Arboretum
Arboretums are parts of nature where the plants has defined origins and age and in there most of the plants are trees or other woody plants which has collected and exhibited in selected carefully. In another respect, arboretums are living museums that are created with knowledge, labor and patience, which overwhelm the scientific and scientific aspects. The functions of arboretums, whose institutions are based on the earth for centuries, vary widely. These; To give information about herbaceous and woody plants to primary and secondary school students, university students, citizens, and to introduce them in growing areas, to contribute to the development of environmental protection consciousness. In addition, collecting exotic and endemic plants from all over the world at the rate allowed by the climate, introducing them to the people without the need for long and expensive travels, allowing them to choose the ones that have the value of ornamentation, protecting those who are in danger of extinction, are among the duties of Atatürk Arboretum.
The first aim of the Atatürk Arboretum is to serve as an open air live laboratory for .İ.Ü. The Faculty of Forestry and its students, forestry engineers, landscape architects, other faculties and research institutions, local and foreign scientists, nature lovers, scientific researches and all other aspects of the Ministry of Forestry that contains everything for studies, and scientifical researches.
Atatürk Arboretum was built on a 296 hectare forest in the southeastern part of the famous Belgrad Forest, which attracted the attention of many local and foreign botanists with its floristic wealth in the Sarıyer district. Atatürk Arboretum where hosts Kirazlıbent within which its borders made at the Ottoman Empire term and also hosts Turkey's first nursery forest which founded in 1916 by Neşet Hoca, cooperates with other arboretums and botanical gardens on the world for the supply seeds and seedlings.
The Arboretum is a business directorate, which managed by an advisory committee, which is affiliated to the General Directorate of Forestry and the Istanbul Forest Regional Directorate's Bahçeköy Forest Directorate,and Arboretum is managed by an advisory board. Arboretum’s scientific authority in the advisory board belongs to the Faculty of Forestry, and the administrative authority belongs to the General Directorate of Forestry. General Directorate of Forestry is also the financial and property source Arboretum.
Brief History of Ataturk Arboretum
Professor of Forestry Faculty Dr. Hayrettin KAYACIK 's proposal to set up an arboretum at Bahceköy in 1949 was approved and the Forestry Faculty and Bahçeköy Forestry Directorate worked together to establish an arboretum in an area of 38 hectares area on Büyükdere-Bahçeköy-Kemerburgaz. Later on, Monsieur Camille, one of the researchers at the Botanical Garden of Sorbon University, was invited to GUINET Istanbul to prepare the project of the arboretum. Mr. GUINET's work continued intermittently between 1959 and 1961 and he planned the road network of Atatürk Arboretum. Since the necessary appropriations could not be provided, the project preparation was incomplete and there left from GUINET, some road networks and paths separated by the world plant. He also left lists of latin names of the tree species to be included in these units.
Until 1982, infrastructure and planting works continued in slow motion. It was renamed the Atatürk Arboretum due to Atatürk's 100th birthday celebratations and on 12.7.1982 as the Chief Operating Officer, Arboretum gained the status of being the smallest administrative unit of the Ministry of Forestry.
- Everyone is invited.