Dear Members, Supporters and Blog Visitors,
As members know, Birds Korea (새와 생명의 터) is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats. We conduct research to develop plans and designs that can help to improve conservation opportunities for birds and additional biodiversity – and thereby help central and local governments to fulfill their existing commitments to conservation and the SDGs.
As a small, specialised Korean NGO, we are proud to share that our most successful work has always depended on the support of our members and on our collaboration with a diverse assemblage of individuals and organisations. We thank all those who have shared their time, energy, ideas and hard work with us.
Here follows a short update on some of our work in the second half of 2025.
Currently, led by Ms Choi Su-Yeon, we are overhauling our online presence. We are also revising the Birds Korea Checklist. Bird names and order have already been revised in accordance with the 2025 global Avilist. We are now trying to go through this list species by species to identify national conservation status.
As there are so few published data to use to identify population trends, several Birds Koreans long ago became strong supporters of eBird, reviewing records and even translating the Merlin App into Korean for domestic use. As the eBird platform has grown rapidly (with 990 birders contributing more than 15,000 checklists nationwide this year already) we are now looking to find the best ways to incorporate these eBird data into our research. We are therefore helping to support a Cornell Lab-led Asian Regional Meeting of eBird reviewers in Songdo, Incheon, on October 28th and 29th; and we are also coordinating a national level meeting of eBird reviewers on October 30th – welcoming three new and highly active independent eBirders to the review team.
Our research and planning work also continues at several internationally important sites nationwide.
In Busan, we signed an MOU with the Busan Nakdong River Project Management Office in July, and with the support and coordination of this Office and of the Nakdong Estuary Eco centre, we have initiated an SER- and Microsoft-supported project that aims to restore habitat of the Eastern Taiga Bean Goose Anser (fabalis) middendorffii. The vast majority of the Korea Non-breeding population of middendorffii Taiga Bean Goose winter along the lower Nakdong River, with key sites that include Upo, Junam reservoir, Hwapocheon and Busan City’s ecoparks, along with the Nakdong Estuary. In recent winters, this population has needed to be sustained by artificial feeding. In support of the ROK’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (2024-2028), there is an urgent need to restore floodplain wetlands – for this species and for specialised floodplain plants, insects, fish and amphibians, as well as to improve water quality, to reduce flooding and to benefit sustainable agriculture, as well as to provide more diverse and safe spaces for environmental education and “re-creation”.
Much more will be posted on the Birds Korea blog over the coming months about this collaborative project; and there will also be a series of related events, starting with a seminar (Korean language only) on September 11th. To register for the seminar, please go here.
Supported by Yeoncheon County, Birds Korea and Birds Korea Yeoncheon continue to work in support of biodiversity conservation in the Imjin River Biosphere Reserve and Imjin River Flyway Network Site. Birds Korea Yeoncheon are participating in a workshop on August 30th; and are conducting Bioblitz events in September, October and November. In addition to continuing with our collaborative efforts to establish a Wetlands Park in Jeongok and to develop appropriate governance structures, we will also participate in an international symposium (“2025 Yeoncheon Global Forum on Peace with Nature”) being co-organised by Yeoncheon County and ICLEI on October 23rd and 24th. Birds Korea will also conduct further surveys of Long-billed Plover and, funded by a small grant through the EAAFP, counts of Scaly-sided Merganser will be conducted once every three days through the southward and northward migration periods. This will help us to establish a five-year geometric mean of counts, as part of Yeoncheon County’s consideration of Ramsar designation of stretches of the Imjin River. Frequent counts of cranes by Birds Korea local expert Baek Seung-Kwang will also continue through the winter.
On Baengnyeong Island, Incheon, as time allows we will continue to gather and present data, with the aim of completing a report within this year or in early 2026 that details the huge importance of this island to the conservation of biodiversity and its potential for ecotourism. Since 2013, 400 species of bird have now been recorded on this island, with internationally important concentrations of at least two species of waterbird every year too. Birds Korea members will know that proposals to build an airport on the island continue to be approved by central government, though construction work lacks adequate funding for now. Surprisingly, we have not been asked by any airport proponent to share our data, or to help with assessment of the very high bird strike risk.
For the Hwaseong Wetlands, we developed a count methodology and participated in collaborative counts of shorebirds and threatened waterbirds in late August. Our shared aim is to assess the impacts of a new sea wall constructed across the upper tidal flat in the Maehyang-Ri Wetland Protected Area as part of a “blue carbon project” (just one of several major threats to the Outstanding Universal Value of this site).
Although analysis is still ongoing, we documented avoidance of most of the upper tidal flat landward of the new sea-wall by shorebirds, which instead concentrated close to the only remaining gap in that seawall. We will continue to do what our limited capacity allows to support proper conservation of the internationally important Hwaseong Wetlands Flyway Network Site, and to continue to promote its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). This includes continuing our calls domestically and internationally for the inclusion of the Hwaseong Wetlands Flyway Network Site in phase 2 of the World Heritage Getbol Korean Tidal Flat serial property. In 2020-2021, we recorded more than 150,000 waterbirds at this site (based on a simple summing of peak counts) and this year, on August 22nd and 23rd alone, we documented 10 species of globally threatened waterbird, including at least 950 globally Endangered Far Eastern Curlew, 1,200 globally Endangered Siberian Sand Plover, two globally Endangered Nordmann’s Greenshank and a juvenile Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper.
Our counts of several of these globally threatened species far surpass counts of the same species – if counts even exist –at the four lower tier tidal flats which (for reasons unknown) are currently being submitted during World Heritage Tidal Flat phase 2: Yeosu Tidal Flat, Goheung Tidal Flat, Muan Tidal Flat and Seosan Tidal Flat. To the best of our knowledge, two of these sites are not even nationally important for waterbirds, while a third – Muan – might suffer from the imposition of a much stricter Wildlife Hazard Management Program following the disastrous air crash there in late December 2024.
If the nation is to fulfil obligations set out in the Cabinet-approved National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (2024-2028), all tidal flats that are known to be internationally important as defined by Ramsar Convention criteria should be conserved; large-scale restoration should be undertaken of areas which are impounded and remain unutilized; and all of the highest value coastal wetlands for waterbirds, especially those in the northwest of the nation, should be designated as World Heritage property. This is, effectively, what was promised back in 2021, after the IUCN, in their formal role of assessing sites for UNESCO, recommended deferral of the four top-tier tidal flats included in Phase 1.
The ROK’s formal response at that time, included within formal documentation submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, was to state that the management and ecological integrity of phase 1 sites would be improved; and initially that nine new top-tier sites would be included in phase 2, including as proposed internationally important wetlands in the northwest, i.e., the Han-Imjin Estuary and tidal flats in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province. This was then re-presented in Supplementary Information, p. 33, as: “In the stage Phase II, tidal flats in the Hangang River estuarine area of the Hangang River System will be included in the extension of the currently nominated property”. Details are provided within this Supplementary Information on several key sites in this Hangang / northwestern sub-region: “Of the tidal flats that belong to the Hangang River System, Ganghwa tidal flat (Natural Monument, 44,958 ㏊), Songdo tidal flat (Wetland Protected Area, Ramsar wetland, 611 ㏊), Garolimman Bay tidal flat (Marine Organism Protected Area, 9,204 ㏊) are all designated as protected areas, and Hwaseong tidal flat (7,301 ㏊) is designated as an EAAF Site”. However, in spite of these existing protections, the ROK argued that most of these wetlands are too heavily degraded by reclamation activities to be included in a World Heritage property. Such statements were apparently enough at that time to persuade the UNESCO World Heritage committee to over-rule the expert advice of the IUCN during Phase 1.
Next year, in July 2026, The UNESCO World Heritage committee will meet for the first time in the ROK (indeed, here in Busan), to announce whether or not the four phase 2 sites, all of which are in the south, southwest and west, should be added to the existing Getbol Korean Tidal Flat World Heritage property. Before then the IUCN will, it is expected, conduct their expert review to assess whether or not meaningful improvements have been made yet to phase 1 sites (in our opinion: sadly not); and on whether or not these four new sites together contribute meaningfully to conserving the Outstanding Universal Value of Korea’s and the Yellow Sea’s tidal flats. Again, in our opinion, they clearly do not. In addition to many of the same issues affecting phase 1 wetlands, all four of these lower tier sites have also been degraded to a lesser or greater extent by reclamation activities – the very same rationale for excluding key sites in the northwest like the Hwaseong Wetlands. So, everyone now needs to ask: why were the Hwaseong Wetlands excluded? Why was Garolim Bay excluded? Why were all of Incheon’s tidal flats excluded? Is it not in the national and global interest to conserve Korea’s most important known sites, those with the highest Outstanding Universal Values for biodiversity?
Moreover, even though designation as a World Heritage property is supposed to provide the gold standard of protections, the most important remaining tidal flat for shorebirds in the Republic of Korea that was included in Phase 1 (Seocheon Getbol, including Yubu Island Ramsar site) is now threatened with further degradation by the proposed New Saemangeum airport; and proposed airports also threaten at least four additional internationally important wetlands: Baengnyeong, Hwaseong Wetlands, Seosan Lake A and the Nakdong Estuary.
Birds Korea therefore continues to do what we can to raise awareness and to share best information honestly, in ways that help to support decision-makers fulfill existing obligations. The ROK is rightly understood already to be a remarkable nation; a vibrant democracy; a nation that leads the world in technological prowess; an emerging cultural super-power, in literature, K-Pop, TV and movies, and in food; now too with several outstanding sports personalities. However, as a nation, the ROK was ranked 100th globally for Ecosystem Vitality in 2024 by Yale’s independent Environmental Performance Index. People cannot live in virtual reality alone. We need healthy ecosystems if our minds, bodies and souls are to thrive.
In the second half of 2025, Birds Korea will therefore continue to conduct research; and continue to contribute to documentaries in Korea and overseas; to write expert letters of concern and grey literature reports that can be used by local people and local NGOs; present at seminars; meet with decision-makers; and provide support to popular campaigns led by other groups, e.g., for Saemangeum and Gadeokdo. Recently, this included (with only a week’s warning!) encouraging like-minded people around the world to voice their support for conservation of the Sura Wetland in Saemangeum, including through making video clips to be used at a press conference for Sura on August 31st in an international outreach campaign led by Dr Kim Nahee (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKA-UZ9J9rE ).
Thank you for reading this far. If you see the value of our work, and want to support Birds Korea in 2025 and beyond, please consider making a donation or share your time and energy to help us create events for our members or to update our online presence. And of course, if you want to become even more part of the change, please join us (membership is only 10,000 KRW a month), and become an active member! Thank you!
Reference
Block, S., Emerson, J. W., Esty, D. C., de Sherbinin, A., Wendling, Z. A., et al. 202). 2024 Environmental Performance Index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. epi.yale.edu