Dalyan is a town in Muğla Province

Mugla Province

Muğla Province is a province of Turkey, at the country's south-western corner, on the Aegean Sea. Its seat is Muğla, about inland, while some of Turkey's largest holiday resorts, such as Bodrum, Ölüdeniz, Marmaris and Fethiye, are on the coast in Muğla....

 located between the well-known districts of Marmaris

Marmaris

Marmaris is a port city and a tourist resort on the Mediterranean coast, located in southwest Turkey, in Muğla Province.Marmaris' main source of income is tourism. Little is left of the sleepy fishing village that Marmaris was just a few decades ago after a construction boom in the 1980s...

 and Fethiye

Fethiye

Fethiye is a city and district of Muğla Province in the Aegean region of Turkey with about 68,000 inhabitants .-History:...

 on the south-west coast of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. The town is an independent municipality, within the administrative district of Ortaca.

Dalyan achieved international fame in 1987 when developers wanted to build a luxury hotel on the nearby İztuzu Beach

Iztuzu Beach

İztuzu Beach is a 4.5km long beach near Dalyan, in the Ortaca district of the Province of Muğla in southwestern Turkey. The beach is a narrow spit of land, which forms a natural barrier between the fresh water delta of the Dalyan river and the Mediterranean...

, a breeding ground for the endangered loggerhead sea turtle

Loggerhead sea turtle

The loggerhead sea turtle , or loggerhead, is an oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around long when fully grown, although larger specimens of up to have been discovered...

 species. The incident created major international storm when David Bellamy

David Bellamy

David James Bellamy OBE is a British author, broadcaster, environmental campaigner and botanist. He has lived in County Durham since 1960.-Career:...

 championed the cause of conservationists such as June Haimoff

June Haimoff

June Haimoff is an English environmentalist who lives in Dalyan in the Turkish province of Muğla. In the period from 1984 – 1988 she and fellow-environmentalists such as David Bellamy, Lily Venizelos, Günther Peter, Nergis Yazgan and Keith Corbett launched a successful campaign to preserve İztuzu...

, Peter Günther, Nergis Yazgan, Lily Venizelos

Lily Venizelos

Lily Venizelos is the founder and president of MEDASSET . Ever since 1983 she has committed herself to protecting the sea turtles that occur in the Mediterranean.- History :...

 and Keith Corbett.