Commercial is not the only value

By Tim Edelsten

Nature-lovers in Seoul have an increasingly difficult task to find anywhere worth visiting.

Sixty years of unbridled development has left only a few, isolated and accidentally preserved pockets of natural scenery. One such picturesque remnant is at Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province.

Strolling over the slew of train tracks and past the warehouses, the lake, bit by bit, reveals its placid glassy expanse. Today, in mid-October, the air has dried and cooled with characteristic abruptness. Meandering dog-walkers, hikers and couples seem to somberly contemplate the approaching winter.

The harsh shriek of a heron pierces the stillness, its large rakish shape laboring through the frigid air. Family parties of coots peck at the surface. The recent drop in temperature has brought the first white-fronted goose, with its merry flutelike call.

As I trace the pastel pink skyline along the western ridge of Gubongsan, its bright limpid glow gently turns to purple, momentarily silhouetting a V-formed squadron of spot-billed ducks. Bands of black-faced buntings dive for cover into the reeds along the path. As the darkness descends, the reeling chirring of crickets begins.

Promotional tourism literature claims the area is ``a green belt that can be developed only with the due permission from related government authorities. Therefore, this area maintains a very pure natural environment."

Evidently the authorities have been very generous lately however. Since my last visit a year ago, a new bridge and an enormous apartment complex has appeared.

The former leafy rural feel of the site has been further vanquished by the construction of a new row of shops. The old orchard has been bulldozed away for a new restaurant. It is now a moonscape with parked bulldozers and piles of scaffolding, the withered former trees shoveled into a pile of refuse. The area has become just another indistinguishable extension of the city.

I read further. ``Wangsong Lake is well-known as the largest scenic spot of immigrating birds in Seoul Metropolitan area. It is a wonderful place for ecological study." Its attraction is its reeds and natural vegetation, where water birds can feed and nest.

This presents a good educational opportunity for city schoolchildren, and a grandiose environmental center was built at the lake's eastern edge. It does not appear to have exerted any say in the management of the lake, however.

Rather, since its inception, the ecological value of the area has practically halved. In 2008, a magnificent avenue of willow trees that lined both streams entering the lake was suddenly uprooted and replaced with sterile concrete paving.

The Ruddy Crakes that had nested there promptly abandoned the site. Soon afterwards, the irrigation channels were concreted into lifeless gutters: they no longer support frogs or wading birds.

In his next breath the writer blithely mentions ``A biking trail is scheduled to be constructed around and over Wangsong Lake." In other words, this peaceful haven will soon become yet another construction site, bringing even more tacky development and a level of human disturbance that will inevitably drive away the birdlife.

I am told that the local mayor thinks the idea is a money-spinner, but the fact that its ecological value will be largely obliterated in the process, seems to be of minor importance.

There appears to be unlimited government money available for ``green" projects, but most of it is being poured into more cement. In reality there is no preservation of bio-diverse habitats occurring.

Instead they are being destroyed by developers at an accelerating rate throughout the country under the erroneous guise of the so-called ``green growth" policy.

Tim Edelsten is a conservationist associated with various environmental organizations in Korea. He can be reached at gymnojene@yahoo.co.uk.