{"id":22288,"date":"2019-08-03T17:25:54","date_gmt":"2019-08-03T08:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=22288"},"modified":"2019-08-03T17:25:56","modified_gmt":"2019-08-03T08:25:56","slug":"new-birds-korea-report-realizing-baekryeong-islands-ecotourism-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=22288","title":{"rendered":"New Birds Korea Report: “Realizing Baekryeong Island\u2019s Ecotourism Potential”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Baekryeong\nIsland is one of the most important remaining areas for birds and for bird\nconservation on the Korean Peninsula. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Situated in the Republic of Korea at closest only 13 km from the DPRK coast, the island has breeding Black-faced Spoonbill<\/strong> and Chinese Egret<\/strong>; overwintering Oriental Stork<\/strong>; and, based on present knowledge, landbird migration on a scale that exceeds anywhere else in Korea. \u00a0Just one of the highlights of the 2019 spring was finding 240 Critically Endangered <\/a>Yellow-breasted Bunting<\/a><\/strong> <\/a>in one area of fields. This is perhaps the highest count of this species ever made in Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Oriental Stork<\/strong> Ciconia boyciana<\/em>, Baekryeong Island, December 2007 \u00a9 Robin Newlin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The island\nalso supports a wonderful assemblage of non-avian nationally threatened species,\nincluding Spotted Seals, Large Copper Butterflies, Gold-spotted Pond Frogs and\nBoreal Digging Toads. There are spectacular views; and the people are\nremarkably kind and friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many other places in Korea and around the world, however, the quality of habitats on the islands is degrading rapidly. Even in the six or seven years since we started regular surveys there, roads have been built through sensitive areas; \u00a0reedbeds have been in-filled; tidal flats have been impounded; and drainage channels have been covered in concrete. There are also plans to build a new airport on the island<\/a> \u2013 a 90 million US dollar \/ KRW101.5 billion investment in yet more concrete between 2019 and 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loving this\nisland, we wanted to do something positive, to help conserve biodiversity and\nto support local people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, we therefore started our \u201cBaekryeong Wetlands Project\u201d, supported by funding from the Hanns Seidel Foundation (Korea office) and in 2018 by Lush, and only made at all possible by the input of some wonderfully generous people. Our thanks to you all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Three-quarters of the winter bird survey team, Baekryeong February 2018 : Jungmoon Ha, Dr Bernhard Seliger and Dr Choi Hyun-Ah \u00a9 Nial Moores (the other quarter!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The aims\nand scope of the Project have continued to evolve.  Starting with an initial, quite vague desire to\nhelp raise awareness and perhaps to try to install frog ladders to reduce\namphibian mortality, the project has grown into a compelling argument for\nconserving biodiversity on the island by developing Baekryeong Island\u2019s still\nunrecognized ecotourism potential. We now have several partners; some funding;\nand a set of clear proposals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Professors Randy Hester and Marcia McNally at the Hwaseong symposium, May 2019 \u00a9 Nial Moores. Below, their expanded concept for the Hwadong wetland for use in \/ adaptation for the Birds Korea report.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This month\nwe are therefore delighted to be able to share these proposals in our report, \u201cRealizing\nBaekryeong Island\u2019s Ecotourism Potential.\u201d \nThe report will be available here on the blog as a pdf, and will be\navailable in Korean in hard copy before the end of this month.<\/p>\n\n\n

Final_Baekryeong-Report-EL-_V2August-3<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please let\nus know what you think; and if you want to help us in this work, please do contact\nus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baekryeong Island is one of the most important remaining areas for birds and for bird conservation on the Korean Peninsula. Situated in the Republic of Korea at closest only 13 km from the DPRK coast, the island has breeding Black-faced … read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":22294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,731],"tags":[600],"class_list":["post-22288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservation","category-plandesign","tag-baekryeong-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22288"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22299,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions\/22299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}