Mon, Sep 06, 2004 page5

• Peace imperils Korean DMZ's valuable wildlife

  • CNY NEW SERVICE
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  From atop an observatory on the demilitarized zone, Lim Sun-nam peered through binoculars at the cold-war spectacle below. He paid no attention to the guard posts or propaganda billboards on the northern side exclaiming "Against America" and "Prosperity of the People."

  Lim took in the verdant hills undulating across the 6km-wide strip of land and the river snaking through it in one of the DMZ's most scenic points. His eyes searched for deer, wild pigs and pheasants living in the zone as well as the elusive animal whose existence here he has spent the last seven years trying to prove: the tiger.

  Although Lim may or may not find the tiger, environmentalists have recognized this area -- one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold War and one of the most fortified and heavily mined stretches on earth -- as the Korean peninsula's, and possibly East Asia's, most important wildlife refuge. They have been pressing to preserve it but are feeling urgency now because of the growing reconciliation between the two regimes.

  The environmentalists fear that a South Korea that puts economic development first and a North Korea that has no environmental conscience could together lead to the zone's rapid destruction as a refuge.

  This natural barrier traverses wetlands, rice paddies, prairies, hills, forests and mountains for more than 150 miles. Enclosed by barbed wire and left virtually untouched since it was created in 1953, the zone has become a haven for animals, birds and plants that are seldom seen elsewhere.

  Migratory birds, including the endangered black-faced spoonbill and the white-naped and red-crowned cranes, fly in and out. Rare animals like the Asiatic black bear, the Eurasian lynx and goral antelopes make this area their home.

  But these days, thousands of South Koreans pass every week through an eastern corridor to a resort in North Korea, a new highway and a railroad linking the two sides have been built.

  "The DMZ is the last major vestige of Korea's natural heritage," said Kim Ke Chung, a professor at the Center for BioDiversity Research at Penn State and chairman of the DMZ Forum, an organization based in the US that is dedicated to preserving the zone. "It's probably the only good thing to come out of the Korean War and Cold War. So we have to preserve this as a nature reserve."

  The DMZ Forum recently conducted a conference in Seoul to gather support for designating the zone a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a classification that would curb all development.

  South Korea and North Korea, however, would have to ask for World Heritage status. North Korea has shown no interest in the issue, said Sohn Hak-kyu, governor of Kyonggi Province, which abuts the zone and was host for the conference. A unified peninsula would focus on North Korea's economic development, and prewar landowners could lay claim to pieces of the zone, Sohn said.

  "There will be strong resistance from North and South Korea to such a designation," he said.

  Although South Korea has not expressed support for the designation, it has begun recognizing the zone's natural legacy. Early this year, South Korea's National Tourism Organization proposed an eco-tourism center in Chorwon, about 60 miles northeast of Seoul and famous for its bird-watching.

  South Korea built ecologically friendly safeguards into the new road and railroads, with so-called eco-bridges and eco-tunnels to allow animals to cross safely over or under the roads. North Korea, which suspected that the crossings served some military purpose, has not shown any interest in building similar safeguards into its portions of the roads.

  Tigers once populated the peninsula and in traditional culture were considered holy animals embodying a mountain deity. The tiger's importance in Korean culture was underscored during the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when it was chosen as South Korea's mascot. The last tigers were believed to have been hunted down by Japanese colonial rulers, which adds to the animal's symbolic importance.

  Lim, 48, a former television cameraman and documentary filmmaker, has found and videotaped what appeared to be tiger footprints inside the restricted civilian-controlled zone just south of the DMZ. He says that what he has seen leads him to believe that 10 tigers live in the zone.

  Since conducting research on the tiger in the late 1990s, Lim has devoted his life to his quest. Children call him Tiger Man.

  Some wildlife experts in South Korea said they believe that the tiger is extinct and that footprints seen by Lim belong to wild dogs. Lim waves away such criticism, saying, "You won't find tiger footprints on college campuses."
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