Saemangeum
Apr. 25th, 2006 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gemfyreAbout a week ago the sea wall at Saemangeum Peninsula in Korea was finally closed.
This pretty much spells doom to a large majority of the Great Knot population, which feeds on tidal flats that now no longer exist. A lot of other waders are also put in great jeopardy by this scheme, and the Spoon-Billed Sandpiper faces extinction within a few years.
A Great Knot on it's way to freedom after being banded in Broome.
A Spoon-billed Sandpiper - one of the world's cutest, and rarest waders.
For years injunctions have been placed on the Korean Government preventing them from completing this seawall, but always they appeal and somehow win.
Why do they need to "reclaim" (as if it was theirs in the first place) this land? Well, first it was gonna have factories on it. Sorry boys, these are tidal mud flats. Need a reminder of what you're going to be trying to build on?
"Okay," they say, "We'll put golf courses on it!"
Hello, oceanic mudflats. Salt galore. Just TRY to grow grass on it. And the building infrastructure to go with the golf courses (WHY do you need more golf courses?), again, mud.
Now of course, the Korean Government can't be made to look stupid over this. They HAVE to save face at the expense of anything. So it was pretty much a case of, "Well we're gonna do it anyway because we can do whatever we want NER!" And they finished it, and claim they're gonna put rice paddies on it. PLEASE people, NEVER EVER buy Korean rice.
WHY do these people get away with such hideous environmental crimes? It's 100 times worse than any war crime. Hitler may have attempted to eliminate a religion, but these people are eliminating entire species by the bucketload and getting off scot free. It makes me sick.
An e-mail sent to Ricki, my boss at the BBO, from Danny Rogers sums it up I think.
Hi Ricki, All is as well with me as can be expected right now, given that I'm at Saemangeum and they closed the sea-wall yesterday. Such a tragedy. Over 100,000 shorebirds using the system at the moment, and in the next couple of days they are going to find out that they aren't just experiencing an unusually neapy tide, but that the tide will never come in again here. We're going to have some bad population declilnes over the next couple of years, I think mostly in Eastern Australia.
Black news, I'm afraid.
Danny Rogers was been researching waders over the past 20 years or so.
A little more info on Saemangeum
This pretty much spells doom to a large majority of the Great Knot population, which feeds on tidal flats that now no longer exist. A lot of other waders are also put in great jeopardy by this scheme, and the Spoon-Billed Sandpiper faces extinction within a few years.
A Great Knot on it's way to freedom after being banded in Broome.
A Spoon-billed Sandpiper - one of the world's cutest, and rarest waders.
For years injunctions have been placed on the Korean Government preventing them from completing this seawall, but always they appeal and somehow win.
Why do they need to "reclaim" (as if it was theirs in the first place) this land? Well, first it was gonna have factories on it. Sorry boys, these are tidal mud flats. Need a reminder of what you're going to be trying to build on?
"Okay," they say, "We'll put golf courses on it!"
Hello, oceanic mudflats. Salt galore. Just TRY to grow grass on it. And the building infrastructure to go with the golf courses (WHY do you need more golf courses?), again, mud.
Now of course, the Korean Government can't be made to look stupid over this. They HAVE to save face at the expense of anything. So it was pretty much a case of, "Well we're gonna do it anyway because we can do whatever we want NER!" And they finished it, and claim they're gonna put rice paddies on it. PLEASE people, NEVER EVER buy Korean rice.
WHY do these people get away with such hideous environmental crimes? It's 100 times worse than any war crime. Hitler may have attempted to eliminate a religion, but these people are eliminating entire species by the bucketload and getting off scot free. It makes me sick.
An e-mail sent to Ricki, my boss at the BBO, from Danny Rogers sums it up I think.
Hi Ricki, All is as well with me as can be expected right now, given that I'm at Saemangeum and they closed the sea-wall yesterday. Such a tragedy. Over 100,000 shorebirds using the system at the moment, and in the next couple of days they are going to find out that they aren't just experiencing an unusually neapy tide, but that the tide will never come in again here. We're going to have some bad population declilnes over the next couple of years, I think mostly in Eastern Australia.
Black news, I'm afraid.
Danny Rogers was been researching waders over the past 20 years or so.
A little more info on Saemangeum
