|
|
发表于 2011-10-9 19:57:23
|
显示全部楼层
http://www.pgai.or.kr/pga/board. ... ;no=67&
Establishment of Getbol Forum Korea and the role in Korean situation
By Chul-hwan Koh, Chairperson, chulhwankoh@gmail.com
Professor of Marine Ecology, Seoul National University
August 2008
Getbol Forum Korea was established in May 2008 with a mission to preserve the characteristic values of Korean coastal wetlands, estuaries and coastal seas. ‘Getbol’ means tidal flat in Korean where the first syllable ‘Get’ means muddy and the second ‘bol’ a wide and plain field. We will use this term to call our Forum, although not known as international terminology.
Among the coastal ecosystem in Korea, especially, the tidal flat is especially unique and important in terms of spatial dimensions and ecosystem services. Along the whole west coast located on the east part of the Yellow Sea, tidal flats are extensively developed from North Korea to South Korea. The spatial dimension of tidal flat exposed to the air during the highest ebb tide is estimated around 250,000 ha in South Korea. North Korea holds the similar size of the tidal flat. Extending the sea bottom area of up to 6 m depth by the Ramsar definition, the ecosystem of Korean tidal flat is enormous in size as found in Wadden Sea region.
Ecologically, the Korean tidal flat including estuary is an important hatching and nursery ground of commercial fishes. Blue crab, shrimp, flounder, yellow croaker and goby are major fisheries products in the region. Another important service to the community is the bare-hand catch of Manila clam, razor clam, burrowing octopus and worms inhabiting the tidal flat. Lug worms are exported to Japan as bate for angling. The artisanal fishery is a tradition in the local and supports the household economically.
Internationally, the Korean tidal flat is the ‘site of international importance’ in terms of annual migration of shorebirds. The area is a key place on East-Asian Australasian Flyway which connects their breeding grounds in northern Asia and non-breeding grounds in Australia and New Zealand. The Saemangeum tidal flat only, which is being turned to a dry land by the 33 km long dike for an agricultural purpose, was visited by ca 300,000 shorebirds annually.
The development pressure to the Korean tidal flat exits for economic and agricultural reasons until today, and therefore, the protection of this unique ecosystem has to be appealed widely and urgently. Late in 1980’s and early in 1990’s is the main period of huge construction of sea walls to turn the tidal flat into agricultural and industrial areas. A total of about 80,000 ha of reclamation projects was launched or completed during this period. Until today, the value of tidal flat ecosystem is not accepted widely and local authorities try to earn the land from it.
The conservation policy for tidal flat is new to us and begun in the beginning of 2000. Considering the late start, eight designations of conservation areas among Korean tidal flats with a total of ca 16,000 ha should be told as a great progress. Among them, tidal flats of Sunchon Bay and Muan are Ramsa sites.
In these circumstances, the Getbol Forum Korea has been launched with a strong mission to protect and preserve the characteristic values of Korean coastal wetlands and seas. Focuses are concentrated on their ecosystems services, their relations to human life, tradition and culture, and sites of international importance. The Getbol Forum is making efforts in improving the situation by suggesting alternative strategy against to the reclamation. Coordination of monitoring and inventory survey along the coastal wetlands is among our interests.
Intervening and supporting the process of policy-making and implementation of tidal flat conservation through dialogues, position papers, reports, symposiums and workshops are an important aspect of our activity. Communication, education and consultation at local level are expected to parts of our contribution to secure the conservation. The Getbol Forum is a stakeholder platform to develop ideas of wise use and to enhance the policy-making for conservation through consensus building. Consensus building among authorities, communities, specialists, NGO’s and local interest groups was the key factor in modifying the development from destructive to sustainable in Korea. Experience in international cooperation is rare, but we will try to cope with this weakness. Members mixed from academies, governmental institutes, authorities and NGO’s altogether surely will enhance those stakeholder dialogues, and we wish to have more people further from various sectors in this respect. |
|
发表于 2011-10-9 19:41:48
