Tidal Changes as S. Korea Walls Off Coastal Wetlands

The tidal flats along this stretch of South Korea’s southwest coast are drying out and endangered birds such as the spoon-billed sandpiper have fled toward the Yellow Sea in search of food.

Fishermen who depend on the 98,000-acre Saemangeum wetlands complain that their shellfish catches have plummeted by 75% and that they can’t take their boats out.

The reason: a 20.5-mile sea wall, completed in April over the objections of environmentalists, who fear it will destroy one of Asia’s most important wetlands.

The government is spending $4.25 billion on the sea wall, the world’s longest, as part of a development drive that since 1960 has converted about half the country’s 988,000 acres of tidal flats to farming and industry.

Coastal wetlands have been lost throughout Asia, including in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau. Singapore has reclaimed 40 square miles since 1965, and China reportedly has taken half its coastal mangrove forests since 1949 for land reclamation and aquaculture.

Japan sparked an international outcry in the 1990s when it began building a 4.4-mile dike around its largest tidal wetlands on Isahaya Bay. A court last year allowed the project to continue, despite environmentalists’ concerns that it was destroying bird habitat.

“In many parts of Asia, particularly developing countries, coastal wetlands are under great threat because they are being used for port facilities, urban development and agriculture development,” said Taej Mundkur, the India-based strategy coordinator for the Asia Pacific Migratory Waterbird Conservation Strategy. “Tidal flats are extremely important for the livelihood of people, nature and the environment.”

The South Korean government says it conceived of the Saemangeum project during a food crisis in the 1970s, and contends that it will alleviate flooding, provide clean drinking water and create much-needed fields for farming in a country where 65% of the land is mountainous.

Successive governments have supported the project, which is backed by politically powerful agriculture interests that dominate politics in the country’s southwest. The first stone in the wall was laid in 1991.

Farmers say the project will help reduce annual flooding that can inundate nearly 30,000 acres of crops in the basin of the Dongjin and Mangyeung rivers.

Fishermen say that although the project may boost farm employment, it threatens 25,000 jobs tied to the sea.

Environmentalists argue it will devastate migratory shore birds.

Hundreds of thousands of birds, including endangered Nordmann’s greenshanks, spoon-billed sandpipers and black-faced spoonbills, stop at the wetlands from March to late May, fattening up on their way to breeding grounds farther north. It is one of the few feeding sites for shore birds along a migratory route running from New Zealand to Alaska.

A loose-knit coalition of Buddhist monks, fishermen and bird watchers banded together to try to halt the plan -- they marched 180 miles to the capital, blockaded the construction site with boats and filed lawsuits that caused temporary halts.

But in March, South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled that the project could proceed, saying there was insufficient evidence it would harm the environment.

The project, scheduled to be completed in 2011, will create a 29,000-acre freshwater lake and turn the rest of the marshy expanse into farmland and possibly a golf course.

“The developers say, ‘Trust us. Don’t worry, it will be OK,’ ” said Nial Moores, 43, a Briton who heads Birds Korea.

“They say the birds will move somewhere else, the tidal flats will re-form,” Moores said, his voice rising in anger.

“This is a fallacy. There is no evidence from anywhere else in the world that tidal flats can re-form in deep sea water.

“There is no evidence from anywhere else in the world that shore birds can simply move somewhere else.”

Saemangeum -- a muddy and sandy stretch of coastline alternately exposed and covered by tides from the Yellow Sea, is about 100 times bigger than New York City’s Central Park. There are 10 such ecosystems in the world.

Environmental researchers say the wall’s impact will probably repeat that of others, causing bird numbers to fall dramatically. Already, dead shellfish litter parts of the flats and bird numbers have dropped 30% in the last five years as their feeding areas have shrunk.

The sea wall could hurt conservation efforts as far away as Australia and Alaska.

“No matter how well we do it in Australia and New Zealand, it is all for nothing if the middle link in the chain is not getting the same kind of attention,” said Australian research Danny Rogers, who came to Saemangeum to study the effect on the Great Knot bird.

Although the government insists the project will be environmentally friendly, it acknowledges that it could lead to a drop in the number of shore birds using the area.

“Even though the tidal flats will disappear, the birds won’t just die,” said Kang Chang-hyun of the Korea Rural Community and Agriculture Corporation. “Besides, we are building a freshwater lake that will attract other species.”

For the fisherman in villages such as Okgu, the concerns are more practical.

Gathering in a community center under a sign reading, “Protect People’s Right to Survive,” fishermen recounted how the falling catches in Saemangeum have left many financially strapped, leading to increasing drunkenness and domestic violence in the 1,200-member community.

Although the government has offered thousands of dollars in compensation, many villagers appear overwhelmed by the prospect of losing a way of life.

“People are mourning,” said Lee Man-ki, 60, whose weathered face reflected the four decades he has spent at sea.

“It is like we are a bereaved family.”