At first, people didn’t understand exactly how the dams would change life in the valley. When the first dam within Munzur Valley National Park was built on the Mercan River (a tributary of the Munzur) it met with little resistance. It was too small to submerge any villages, and the government pledged it would have negligible impact on the environment. Once it was completed in 2003, however, locals realized that the riparian ecosystem below the dam was suffering; with so little water flowing downstream, fish populations were dying off. A protest movement against the rest of the dams planned for the valley was ignited, which quickly grew into a widespread grassroots campaign of mostly peaceful, yet very vocal, resistance.

Writer's note: of the many people that we spoke to in the Munzur Valley, every single person was aware of the dam project, and every single one was vehemently opposed to it.