Guide
The Kasnak Oak Nature Conservation Area cannot simply be visited. The Directorate General of Nature Conservation and National Parks states that entry is by special permission for educational and scientific purposes only, on payment of a fee and in the company of staff. Capacity is given as 100 visitors and five vehicles, with hours of 09:00 to 17:00.
The area lies within Yukarıgökdere village in Eğirdir district of Isparta province, in the basin that also holds the Eğirdir and Kovada lake wetlands, next to coniferous forest of juniper, pine and cedar. It was protected on 27 July 1987 because, the directorate says, it is the only place where the kasnak oak forms natural stands. Its size is given as 1,310.38 hectares in the area record and 1,300 hectares in the text.
Kasnak oak, Quercus vulcanica, is endemic to Türkiye and under threat of extinction, and the directorate describes the trees here as the oldest and the most widely spread in the country, showing the finest examples of the species both in pure stands and mixed with cedar and juniper. Those mixtures include Lebanon cedar, Türkiye oak, Grecian and prickly and stinking juniper, Balkan maple, wild service tree, terebinth, cornelian cherry, manna ash, aspen, black pine and Cilician fir.
Academic survey has recorded 442 plant species in the area, 69 of them endemic, and nearly the whole range of mountain and steppe plants is represented, which leads the directorate to call it almost an arboretum. The recorded fauna comes to 11 mammals, 72 birds, 13 reptiles, one amphibian and 129 insects. Wolf, jackal, badger, stone marten, weasel, lynx, wild boar, fox, hedgehog, mole, bats and hare are among the mammals; common buzzard, crested lark, blackbird, sparrowhawk, hoopoe, carrion crow and sparrow are the most frequently seen birds. Getting there means hourly minibuses between Isparta and Eğirdir from the village garage, then a village minibus from Eğirdir to Yukarıgökdere, and a private vehicle from the village along an unsurfaced stony forest road.
- Designated
- 27.07.1987
