Restoration of tidal flow for Saemangeum

By Tim Edelsten

There was something in the air in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, in 2003. It breezes into memory, layered with the heady perfume of seaside flowers, in the fresh onshore wind, that blew ahead of the tide, into the gloriously vast bay of Saemangeum.

In nearby Gunsan, with its baroque fairy-tale motels, people strolled with a delicate innocence, as if still picking their way over the paths of the estuary. At the Okku salt ponds, tanned local villagers squatted on sun-baked levees under their broad-rimmed straw hats, waiting for the sea to return.

That ethereal late-summer moment of water and light washes over me now, like a dream of a gentler and happier age. It is punctuated by the piercing overhead calls of a Golden Plover, and shadowed by flights of thousands of shorebirds roused from the glistening mudflats. It speaks to me of the rhythms of life, the people, and the interdependence of all things, stretching back to the beginning of time.

Today the saltpans are abandoned and the fishers sit idle, their communities broken up. Everyone knows what happened: in 2006 a 33km-long constructed seawall, the pet project of a former president, finally closed on this 400 sq. km of bountiful mudflat, abruptly leaving whole communities of people, shellfish and birds without the means to survive.

In the aftermath, millions of dying mollusks gasped their way to the surface of the drying mud. Marine life in the surrounding sea suddenly crashed. Later, the scattered corpses of starved birds littered the dust. Their populations decreased in tandem with the land grab. It has been a monstrous ecocide, a stain on the conscience of the nation.

The wall has pushed toward extinction species like the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, which as a result now numbers less than 200 worldwide. These birds have a right to exist. Despite being Korea's only regularly-occurring critically endangered species, it is not monitored, it receives no national media coverage, and there are no domestic funds for its conservation.

Water quality within this giant landfill has plunged, due to polluted runoff from urban and agricultural areas upstream. It is now estimated that it would take some 28 new wastewater treatment facilities to restore it to levels fit for human and agricultural use. The cost to the taxpayer grows exponentially.

``No matter how far you have gone down the wrong path, turn back" is ancient wisdom. Ideally Saemangeum should be returned to its natural state, while it is still possible to do so ― in line with other nations, who are endeavoring to reverse their reclamation mistakes.

Interestingly, ``ecological restoration" was the title of a recent government symposium, hosted by the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Environment last November (2011). However there was no discussion about restoring mudflats, fisheries, or the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Instead, more infrastructure was proposed: cycle tracks and parks. It seems the current concept of ``green growth" does not include protecting biodiversity, and all this despite the fact that Korea had publicly signed commitments at the Ramsar Convention and the Convention of Biological Diversity.

A limited tidal exchange, maintained until at least September 2011, allowed for significant shorebird concentrations, including several Spoon-billed sandpipers. A few people still harvest a small, simplified catch of shellfish in these damp areas. However, sluice gates have since been shut to allow for construction of the inner dykes.

For Saemangeum development plans to garner any environmental respectability, a significant area of tidal mudflat must be restored and safeguarded. What is most urgently needed, however, is to restore at least some tidal flow, to relieve water quality and maintain biodiversity.

The writer is a conservationist associated with various environmental organizations in Korea. Reach him at gymnojene@yahoo.co.uk.