Unraveling multispecies lifeways: socio-ecological crises in the Köyceğiz-Dalyan Special Environmental Protection Area, Muğla, Turkey

Abstract This article explores how socio-ecological crises reshape the Köyceğiz-Dalyan region, Turkey’s first Special Environmental Protection Area, through a more-than-human approach. Based on multi-stage qualitative research conducted between 2018 and 2023, we argue that the region is experiencing interconnected socio-ecological crises that are transforming a long-standing multispecies web of life unique to the area. Our findings highlight two major shifts: first, deforestation, driven by agricultural land clearance, mining activities, and forest fires, has dismantled collaborative practices such as beekeeping, goat keeping, and small-scale agriculture, all of which sustained multispecies partnerships that maintained both biodiversity and traditional livelihoods. Second, waves of lifestyle migration, from middle-class retirees in the 1980s and 1990s to remote workers during COVID-19, have altered village demographics and transformed landscapes through construction that replaces agricultural lands and forests with residential developments. These interwoven transformations demonstrate how socio-ecological crises simultaneously unravel multispecies relationships, eliminate traditional sustainable livelihoods, and fragment life networks that once sustained both human communities and biodiversity.