With 3,200 millimetres of rain a year and constant high humidity, the untouched vegetation rising along the deep valleys of the Efeler forest gives it the character of a rainforest ecosystem. The directorate describes it as the only forest ecosystem untouched by human hand not just in Türkiye but in almost the whole of Europe.
Camili-Efeler Ormanı was declared a nature conservation area on 24 March 1998, under the national parks law. The GEF-II project was carried out here as scientific work; the area holds biosphere reserve areas and is rich in biological diversity; and it serves as a gene conservation basin for the pure Caucasian honeybee.
It lies within the bounds of Efeler village in the Borçka district of Artvin; Borçka itself is 32 kilometres from the provincial centre.
Getting there
- Access
- Within the bounds of Efeler village, forty-five kilometres from Borçka.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Artvin as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2.8 °C in January to 21.3 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (87 mm) and lightest in August (29 mm). Long-term means for 1949-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
