Erysichthon’s Regret
By Kim Jin-hyun
According to Greek mythology, King Erysichthon felled the tallest oak tree in a grove sacred to Demeter, goddess of earth. Demeter placed Aethon the god of famine in his stomach to punish Erysichthon who would have to live with an insatiable hunger. Eventually Erysichthon, driven mad by hunger, ate himself. If a single tree was held so dear in those days, how would Demeter judge our destruction of nature if she should appear today?
One of my hobbies is to stroll around parks or mountains by myself. One day, I walked to a park near my school and its trail was paved with synthetic material, urethane. At first, the covering looked clean and convenient, but I became disgusted as it emitted a strong disgusting odor. It was the same in the downtown parks. For a walker urethane-paved roads are no match for natural trails.
Last weekend, I went to a village in Gokseong County in the eastern part of South Jeolla Province. Most of the mountains and fields along the roads on my way there were excavated or unearthed to build roads or other modern infrastructure.
A psychological study reports that there are at least three kinds of interaction needed to cause an accident: its environment, condition, and a person or group's desire.
Can it mean the environment's destruction or change is due in part to my neglect? The need for change has been incessantly reiterated and the damage to the environment has been the price of progress. But who benefits from this devastation? The regional leaders' messages are stereotyped: If their regions are developed, residents will be richer or enjoy greater convenience in transportation and other areas
But it's also a law of nature that a knife has two edges, a virtuous and a vicious one.
Many years ago, the central and northern parts of Gyeonggi Province experienced disastrous flooding. Coincidently or not, included among the most damaged parts were exorbitantly developed areas for golf course projects. Also, at a branch of the Nakdong River, the heavy rainfall damaged the artificially made dams causing much more serious problems.
As experts who surveyed the sites found out, most of the damage was not caused by natural disasters, but by man-made ones. It pointed to their project managers' shortsightedness caused by hurried construction, self-interest, and/or mistaken situation analysis.
These are probably the modern equivalents of Demeter's anger, aren't they?
Therefore, construction projects planned by local governments, need perfect project programs, in consultation with regional representatives, including villagers and their leaders, and experts to prevent developments from triggering natural disasters, or to keep any damage to a minimum.
Korea experiences heavy rainfall during its monsoon season. Luckily we haven't experienced a typhoon's influence for two consecutive years. If a typhoon passes through the Korean Peninsula with strong rain and wind, nobody knows how much damage we will suffer. Therefore, it's a basic rule to conduct any project with maximum safety in mind. Furthermore, it's imperative that architects should join forces with meteorologists, environmental experts and residents.
Fortunately, citizens are trying to find ways to recover nature. For example, our city has recently built an environmentally-friendly tunnel by restoring its original shape. Some regional leaders and villagers in Jangheung County of South Jeolla Province reclaimed land by draining seawater and helped its villagers get more benefits from the natural environment by recreating its original form.
Faced with the brutal destruction of nature, I'm afraid of how we human beings will be judged by Demeter, who protects the earth.
Therefore, humans should not think of nature as part of themselves but think of themselves as part of nature's greatness. This means human's brutal destruction of nature will lead to their brutal self-destruction.
The writer is an English teacher at Yeosu Girls High School in South Jeolla Province. He can be reached at shinykim60@hanmail.net.