Towards Conserving our Shared Natural Heritage: Wetlands and Birds Korea

Nial Moores(Ecological Planner, Wetlands and Birds Korea, Busan, South Korea)

Introductory Preamble

The Yellow Sea, comprising the coastal wetlands (rivers, estuaries, saltmarshes and tidal-flats) and marine areas of China, North and South Korea, is one of the most important shallow sea areas in the world both for biodiversity and for people. It has many obvious parallels with the Wadden Sea of Northwestern Europe. Despite extensive reclamation and widespread degradation of remaining areas, the Yellow Sea region still possess more than 1 million hectares of tidal-flats, which support a very significant percentage of East Asia’s migratory waterbirds and a huge fishing industry. This natural resource, however, is severely stressed by increasing overexploitation, and many species of fish and bird are in significant decline. Although clearly a single ecological unit (sharing water and river-borne sediments, sea currents, and migratory species for example, not only amongst themselves but most especially with Southwestern Japan), the region is economically diverse and politically divided, hampering the development of necessary joint conservation initiatives. In the past decade, however, the growth of international conventions (especially the Ramsar “Wise Use of” Wetlands Convention [Iran, 1971]), and the increasing economic and political maturation of especially South Korea and China, has led to increased dialogue and cooperation at the government level for surveys of the Yellow Sea. Similarly, NGOs have evolved rapidly in Northeast Asia, most especially in Japan and South Korea, the latter now possessing in the Korean Federation for the Environment (KFEM) probably the largest environmental-related NGO in East Asia. As in other parts of the world, Northeast Asian NGOs are developing the technical skills and expertise to assist fully in regional conservation initiatives. Amongst the region’s organisations with expertise in wetland conservation are two international NGOs (Wetlands International China Program [WI-China], and World Wide Fund for Nature-Japan [WWF-Japan]), and one recently-formed national NGO, Wetlands and Birds Korea (WBK), that aims to work for wetland and bird conservation throughout the Korean peninsula and the Yellow Sea. Following several years of growing interest in and concern for the Yellow Sea Ecoregion, a cooperative project between these three organizations was launched. This report aims to explain in greater detail especially the need for and the movement towards this project, the Ecoregion Initiative, which aims to develop a shared vision and conservation methodology for one of the world’s greatest and most threatened natural resources: the Yellow Sea.

The Yellow Sea

The Yellow Sea is one of the world’s largest and most significant shallow sea areas. In this report, as in the cooperative project (the Ecoregion initiative, or ERI) between WBK, WWF-Japan and WI-China, the Yellow Sea Eco-region (from herein referred to as the YSE) is defined as an area that includes the Bohai Sea (with an area of ca 77 000 km2), the Yellow Sea proper (with an area of 380 000 km2), and the south coast of South Korea (all that lies north of a line from the Yangtze estuary, to the southernmost point of Cheju Island, and onto the easternmost corner of the Nakdong estuary near Busan). Although not dealt with in the ERI, the tidal-flats in Southwest Japan also share many biological and ecological characteristics of the YSE (including the majority of benthos and migratory bird species), and from a conservation perspective also need to be considered part of a ‘Broader YSE’. The sea proper is shallow (with depths averaging only 44 m, and 26 m in the Bohai) and largely edged by extensive tidal-flats, formed by deposition of sediments from especially the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in China and to a lesser extent by North Korean rivers and the Keum, Han and Nakdong Rivers in South Korea. The tidal-flats and shallows are the egg-laying and nursery areas of huge numbers of economically important fish (most of which migrate out of the YSE into southern Chinese or Japanese waters during the northern winter), shellfish, and crustaceans and also support many seaweeds. Although data remain scarce (one motivating factor for developing the ERI) this immense biomass also supports several million migratory waterbirds (including at least three globally threatened species that nest near-exclusively in the YSE), and the food needs of an enormous number of people. Such people are either involved in sustenance harvesting of tidal-flat animals, in mariculture, seaweed harvesting or in boat-based fisheries. However, the whole YSE ecosystem is under immense stress, and there are clear signs that human use of the available natural resources is not sustainable. Such signs include the extinction or near-extinction of several key indicator bird species (indicators as they are confined to certain types of habitat: if that habitat disappears so will that species and all the other species that used to exist there), the decline in fisheries, despite increased catch efforts, and the worsening of toxic algal blooms (“red tides”) e.g. along all three coasts of South Korea. These blooms, an indicator of excessively eutrophic or polluted waters, have the capacity to wipe out mariculture, reduce the attractiveness of areas to tourists, and lead to the loss of billions of dollars from the national economy.

Major causes of stress to the whole system include reclamation, damming of rivers (which affects freshwater input, nutrient levels and the formation of new tidal-flats), increasing pollution, and over-fishing. These problems are all compounded by a lack of coordinated conservation initiatives, lack of understanding or awareness of ecological relationships, and policy frameworks directed towards shortsighted development.

It is clear that the results of this cumulative set of problems go beyond the very real probability of extinction of species of bird and sea mammal. They include the demise of fisheries and fishing communities, with a resultant increase in poverty in coastal areas further worsening problems of urban drift and depopulation of the countryside. Ultimately, the decline in the Yellow Sea’s natural productivity could lead to the increased possibility of starvation for some island and coastal human communities in the most impoverished areas and heightened regional tension.

The Background to the ERI

Awareness about the value of and concern over the loss of wetlands, especially coastal wetlands, has been increasing rapidly in East Asia, and the ERI is a response to this. To explain the project’s genesis and aims adequately, a background to coastal wetland loss and declines in migratory bird populations, an explanation of the Ramsar Convention, and a brief review of activities of national and international NGOs’ wetland conservation activities in Japan, South Korea and China, is given.

1. Wetland and Species Loss

China, the Korean peninsula and Japan, share a tradition of rice-growing combined with a dense population, and land interiors which are either extensively mountainous (the Koreas, Japan) or extremely dry (China). This has led to a culture of wetland reclamation in low-lying, fertile areas. This reclamation was historically concentrated on converting river flood plain to rice-field, with only comparatively small-scale reclamations of the upper parts of tidal-flats, especially for rice and salt production. However, during the twentieth century the scale of coastal reclamation projects grew throughout the region, apparently reaching its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, while most of remaining floodplain areas were also converted to agriculture and urban uses, especially in Japan and South Korea. Before the establishment of government research groups (working for example to develop the Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem Review) and the ERI process, data on this wetland loss and the resultant impacts on fisheries and bird populations for South Korea and especially China were not easily accessible, especially to the NGO community and general public. Such data sadly still remains inaccessible for North Korea.

Reclamation in recent decades in each country has been largely driven centrally, and undertaken primarily (i) to increase national rice production (and thence food self-sufficiency), (ii)“to increase national territory” (South Korea), (iii) to strengthen the construction industry, and thus rather cynically win local support for the incumbent government through pork-barrel politics (Japan), (iv) to increase centrally-controlled rice production (China and South Korea), and (v) to develop salt and shrimp production (China). Each country’s national land use plans have thus encouraged widespread reclamation.

In the case of South Korea a Master Plan drawn up in the mid-1980s targeted at least 85% of remaining tidal-flats and shallows for reclamation, with 62 000 ha converted by 1994, and a further 76 000 ha in the process of reclamation by the end of the 1990s. One project, the Saemankeum reclamation, is believed to be the largest coastal reclamation project in the world, and entails constructing a 33 km long seawall across two estuaries, thus converting 40 100 ha of shallows and tidal-flats into agricultural land and reservoirs. This single project, if completed as planned in ca. 2005, will lead to the loss of about 15% of extant tidal-flat nationwide.

In China, the government until the late 1990s was apparently considering 100% reclamation of intertidal wetlands. Reclamation in China had already converted at least 50% of the previously extant 3.1 million ha of coastal marshes and tidal-flats, largely into salt-farms, shrimp ponds and rice-fields between the 1950s and 1990s. It is estimated that 879 000 ha of tidal-flat have so far been reclaimed (Lu, 1994, in Moores et al 2001).

In Japan, at least 40% of tidal-flats had been lost nationally since 1945 (Atsuo, 1994), and approximately 1% of the coastline was being reinforced with concrete annually through the 1980s and 1990s, in the latter decade driven by large public works projects in an attempt to reduce unemployment and float the stagnant economy. Such projects included the 3 500 ha Isahaya Bay reclamation, causing the loss of the most representative of the Broader YSE ecosystems. Japan now has considerably less than 60 000 ha of tidal-flat remaining, and almost all of its estuaries and bays are dammed and concrete-edged.

Data for North Korea are still unavailable, but satellite images suggest that perhaps some 200 000 or 300 000 ha of tidal-flat have been reclaimed, possibly representing about 50% of the original area.

Such extensive wetland loss or conversion throughout the region has led to the decline (and even in some cases the disappearance) at the national level of most species of whale, and several species of fish and bird: the largest and most well-known of the main species groups.

In the case of birds (many of which are widely considered to be very important environmental indicators or barometers), most floodplain specialists have declined significantly due to habitat loss. These include previously widespread families such as geese, and a host of now threatened species (with global population estimates following in brackets) such as the Oriental White Stork Ciconia boyciana (ca 2 500), which used to be a widespread nesting bird in both Japan and Korea until the 1950s; the Japanese Crested Ibis Nipponia nippon (ca 100), now confined to two or three remote valleys in China; and all of the Cranes (the 3 commonest species now numbering between 2 000 and 9 000). Estuarine specialists are also now showing significant declines, and the three species considered to be near-confined to the YSE for nesting are all globally threatened: the Black-faced Spoonbill Platelea minor (ca 650), the Chinese Egret Egretta eulophotes (1800-2500) and the Saunders’s Gull Larus saundersi (7000). In addition almost all species of migratory shorebird appear to be in decline, and two especially, the highly specialised Nordmann’s Greenshank Tringa guttifer (< 1000) and Spoon-billed Sandpiper Eurynorhynchu pygmeus (ca 2000?) are likely to be extinct within the next 20-30 years. In some ways, the noticeable declines in the commoner, more widespread estuary-preferring species, such as the Dunlin Calidris alpina are of even greater concern, as such species are considered more robust and able to tolerate small changes in the ecological character of wetlands that support them. The declines in or the loss of such bird species indicates the declining quality or loss of particular wetland habitats and the assemblages of other species (e.g. crabs, mudworms, shellfish, fish) found within them that the birds have evolved to feed upon.

Many floodplain, estuarine and riverine fishes have also declined obviously throughout the region, as a result of reclamation, degradation of shallows, increasing pollution and over-fishing. An analysis of fisheries in the YSE for example (contained in the ERI Korean Volume) reveal steep declines in either total catches or catch per unit of effort for many economically valuable fish species, including both demersal species (e.g. Small Yellow Croaker Pseudosciaena polyactis, and Hairtail Trichiurus lepturus), and pelagic species (e.g. Pacific Herring Clupea harengus pallasii and Japanese Mackerel Scomber japonicus)

In addition, in at least Japan and South Korea, saltmarsh communities and sea grass beds have largely disappeared too. Beyond loss of plant species such changes also lead to changes in estuarine nutrient loads, water quality and ultimately fish and bird populations too.

However, until very recently there had been little attempt at assessing such losses at even the local or the national level, and no mechanism for developing a regional picture or conservation response at the international level, essential for species that cross national boundaries.

2. The Ramsar Convention and the Brisbane Initiative

The Ramsar Convention however, is an intergovernmental treaty, supported by a partnership of leading international NGOs (WWF-International, Birdlife International, Wetlands International and the IUCN), which aims to “provide[s] the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources” (Ramsar home-page, 2001). By 2001, there were 124 Contracting Parties or governments, including Japan (since 1980), China (since 1992) and South Korea (since 1997). The Convention works primarily by obliging contracting governments to identify and improve policies affecting wetland conservation, and by encouraging within national territory the designation of sites of international importance that meet internationally agreed criteria (especially until the mid-1990s focused almost entirely on waterbirds). As of July 2001, Japan had designated 11 such sites totaling 83 725 ha, China had 7 sites totaling 588 380 ha and South Korea 2 sites, totaling 960 ha. These still represent only a small percentage of wetlands that meet agreed criteria, as for example waterbird surveys in South Korea suggest at least 63 sites nationwide should be so identified, including more than 40 coastal wetlands (Moores, 1999), totaling probably 200 000 ha or more.

The Ramsar Convention, by concentrating on both national and increasingly on shared waters, migratory waterbirds and fish, plays a critical role in helping develop multilateral initiatives, often funded by contracting parties but enacted by NGOs. The 1993 Kushiro Conference in Japan, for example, was followed up by a 1994 Kushiro waterbird specialist meeting that laid the groundwork for a multilateral initiative to examine and (if possible) to reverse trends in declining waterbirds within the Asia-Pacific. This was refined further into the Brisbane Initiative (launched at the 1996 Brisbane Ramsar Conference) and the Asia-Pacific Migratory Waterbirds Strategy that set up and funded networks of waterbird specialists/NGOs and identified key waterbird sites throughout the Asia-Pacific. Such initiatives have been largely funded by the governments of Japan and Australia (and to some extent by that of the Netherlands). A key provocateur of the Brisbane Initiative were the declines in migratory shorebirds that breed in Alaska and Siberia and spend their non-breeding season in Australia and New Zealand. Largely protected in Australasia and unaffected by habitat change in their far northern breeding grounds, the steep declines could only have been caused by reclamation and degradation of their estuarine migration stopover sites in Japan and the Yellow Sea, which researchers began to dub the “Hot Zone” (i.e. the most important but most threatened region). Such an Initiative was therefore a response to the realisation both that the YSE natural resource base was being eroded rapidly, and that multilateral initiatives were required to halt such losses.

3. The Evolution of Wetland NGOs in the broader Yellow Sea region

The Ramsar Convention therefore has been an effective catalyst and support structure for NGO activity in the Asia-Pacific and YSE, offering a framework with which to identify and challenge policy gaps at the national and international level. The triennial meetings especially have acted as a focus of activity for national NGOs. In Japan, although there had been an informal network of activists opposing tidal-flat reclamation in e.g. Isahaya Bay, Nagasaki Ken and in Ise Bay, Aichi Ken, it was preparations for the 1993 Ramsar Conference (held in Northern Japan), that stimulated the birth of the national Japan Wetlands Action Network (JAWAN) in 1991 and the formation of a Japan-wide alliance of major national NGOs (including the Wild Bird Society of Japan, with approximately 50 000 members, the Nature Conservation Society of Japan, Friends of the Earth Japan and WWF-Japan). This Alliance, generating major public interest in wetland and waterbird conservation in Japan, first focused on developing a national overview of wetland loss, and then also started to look outwards, as it too realised that a movement aiming to conserve “internationally important wetlands” and migratory waterbirds at sites in Japan would prove meaningless unless neighboring countries undertook similar actions. At the 1993 Kushiro Conference, therefore, networking intensified from initial contacts between e.g. Korean researchers and a JAWAN representative (the author) that took place at a Birdlife International meeting in Seoul and Busan in 1992, to an invitation to a representative from a Korean NGO, the Baedal Eco-Society, to speak at a JAWAN symposium in southern Japan in 1993. While JAWAN has continued to work for migratory birds such as the declining Dunlin Calidris alpina and lobby government for conservation of key wetlands especially within Japan, WWF-Japan, as part of WWF-International, has also in recent years become increasingly active in broader initiatives.

In South Korea, during the late 1980s and early 1990s major social changes generating from a rapidly growing economy and the democracy movement of the 1970s and 1980’s resulted in the formation of the first national environmental NGOs, the Korean Research Institution of Environmental Problems (which grew into the Korean Anti-Pollution Movement and ultimately KFEM from 1993), and the Baedal Eco-society (which evolved into Green Korea United, South Korea’s second largest environmentally NGO, with approximately 15 000 members by 2001). Increasing internationalization, due to increased foreign trade and e.g. the hosting of the 1988 Olympics, encouraged some Korean environmentalists to look outward. The Baedal Eco-society especially were very active in opposing the construction of the Incheon International Airport on extensive tidal-flats at Yong Jong, mostly because of the project’s corrupt financial base and engineering defects, but also due to its anticipated impacts on populations of migratory waterbirds. One species especially, the Endangered Chinese Egret, nested near the Yong Jong reclamation site, and independent research suggested that the same tidal-flats were supporting possibly 40% of the world’s population of that species. Consequently a representative joined JAWAN’s symposium in Japan, and took the first step in raising international awareness of this and other South Korean reclamation issues. Subsequently, between 1994 and 1996, a growing understanding of the importance and value of South Korean wetlands led to the formation of the Korean Wetlands Alliance in 1996, attendance at the 1996 Ramsar Convention by Korean NGOs (often working cooperatively with those from Japan) and South Korea’s accession to the Convention the following year. By 2000, several environmental NGOs had become active in wetland conservation issues, and wetland schools (such as at Woopo Ramsar site) and centers were being developed, both by NGOs and government. The same year, Wetlands and Birds Korea evolved, to become the first Korean NGO focused entirely on wetland and bird conservation, through research, education and cooperation at the local, national and international level. WBK’s involvement in the ERI forms a core part of its preparation for the 2002 Ramsar Convention Conference to be held in Spain.

In China, the NGO movement is still relatively small, but the Wetlands International China program was founded in 1996, and has subsequently been instrumental in many wetland conservation surveys and projects in both coastal and inland China. Working closely with some sectors of government, they have had many successes in raising the profile of China’s wetlands. They, along with WWF-China who have discussed the project with their Japanese counterparts, were the obvious partners for an NGO-led YSE conservation initiative

The Birth of the Yellow Sea ERI

With (1) the evolution of NGOs within the region, some of which have become increasingly specialised and experienced in wetland conservation issues; (2) the growing realization of the importance and degradation of the YSE, first expressed in the mid-1990s; and (3) the growth of multilateral initiatives in key areas for waterbird conservation; it was inevitable that discussions would turn to developing a Yellow Sea conservation initiative, though what form that would take was by 1998 still unclear.

To gain greater insight into a possible process, visits were made to the Wadden Sea by the author and independently by WWF-Japan’s wetland officer (Tobai Sadayosi) in 1998 and 1999, to research conservation methods. The Wadden Sea, now a Ramsar site managed jointly by the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, offers many ecological and even historical parallels to the YSE. First and foremost, the Wadden Sea, like the YSE, is one of less than 10 areas globally with extensive tidal-flats and shallows. Similar to the YSE, the Wadden Sea is also the main staging area for huge numbers of migratory shorebirds, moving not between Australasia and Eastern Siberia (as in the YSE), but rather between Africa and Western Siberia. The Wadden Sea too is the main fish egg-laying area and nursery for adjacent seas, and shellfish harvesting and fisheries have been critical to the economic development of the region. Similar to the YSE too, the Wadden Sea also suffered extensive reclamation and degradation of remaining areas, and cultural differences, made severe by war and occupation of the Netherlands by Germany in the 1940s, significantly contributed to a background of political and popular distrust. Nevertheless, the Wadden Sea is now co-managed by a Secretariat consisting of representatives from all three countries; coastal reclamation has been completely stopped within the region: stocks of shellfish and the fishing industry are being guided towards sustainability (though many problems still remain); and restoration of many areas is being undertaken. Through active conservation, much of the Wadden Sea has become a popular tourist destination (one island, Texel, in the Netherlands receiving between 4-6 million tourists annually for example), and populations of several species of waterbird are on the increase. Public awareness about the value of the region continues to grow, in step with the natural resource.

Discussions on a Yellow Sea wide NGO conservation initiative with NGOs in Northern Europe (such as WWF-Germany, which manages part of the Wadden Sea, and the Netherlands partner of Birdlife International), and relevant regional government officials were expanded upon, in an informal workshop at the 1999 Costa Rica Ramsar Convention, and through subsequent meetings with government delegates from China, South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands and Germany. Already, China and South Korea were cooperating on fisheries projects and on producing a Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem Review: however, such initiatives were not designed to receive broad-based support or inputs from local communities. This we perceive more to be the role of NGOs.

WWF-Japan especially considered that the Yellow Sea’s conservation need to be approached at the Ecoregion level, with a tested approach. The Yellow Sea had already been identified as one of WWF’s Global 200, a list of the most important and representative assemblages of biodiversity and ecological processes on Earth, and WWF has experience in developing appropriate Ecoregional Planning methodologies (e.g. for the Bering Sea Ecoregion). Such a process involves: (1) gathering multi-disciplinary data on the resource throughout the region, which is termed the Reconnaissance Phase; (2) analyzing the data to identify priority areas (Biological Assessment Phase); and (3) setting out long-term conservation goals in the form of a Biodiversity Vision. This process is further refined through Socio-Economic Assessment and then the final production of a comprehensive conservation strategy. WWF Japan therefore sought funding (which was later received from the Japan Fund for the Global Environment), and contacted WI-China and the recently-formed WBK to discuss full participation in the process.

Both WI-China and WBK readily accepted, and in November 2000, we began the task of researching data and contacting experts from a wide range of fields in the region. In the case of WBK, we also conducted a survey of wetlands along the south and west coasts in January 2001 (repeating a similar survey conducted in 1998-1999), both gathering data for the project and disseminating information on it to members and interested parties.

After several months of research, discussion and fieldwork, we were finally able to produce a 140-page report on the Korean part of the Yellow Sea (with WI-China producing a same format volume on the Chinese part) both in the national language and in English. This report contains sections on the area’s physical geography and physical processes; its biological resources, including fish, benthos, birds and sea mammals; assorted data on socio-economic trends and human impacts, including reclamation and pollution; and a section on relevant laws affecting wetland conservation.

The Report is significant in several ways: (1) It is apparently the most comprehensive overview of the Korean part of the Yellow Sea produced for a potentially wide readership; (2) it is the first such wide-scale scientific-based planning report produced by a Korean NGO, and marks an evolution in thinking about wetland conservation; (3) it is the first report of this kind produced through the cooperation of Chinese, Korean and Japanese organizations. The data contained within it, if used effectively, should empower much greater NGO and popular participation in regional conservation initiatives: it has already proved to be both a useful training and empowering document.

During the same period, in the late winter and spring of 2001, meetings between the three organizations were also held in Beijing and then again in Seoul. The first meeting worked on harmonizing our Reports; the latter focused on looking forward to the second phase of the project. This second joint meeting was hosted by the Resource Centre for Asian Studies at Sungkonghoe University, and gave all three organizations the opportunity to explain their work and the rationale for the ERI to an audience of about 30 Korean students and NGO experts, while the following day the project was further explained to 30 local WBK members during a joint visit to an adjacent wetland..

The Future?

Funding is presently being sought to allow for continuing and expanding the expert review of the Report, and to allow for broader public involvement in the process. More exactly, the aim of all three organizations will be to produce a Report containing elements of Biological Assessment in time for an informal workshop at the next Ramsar Conference in November 2002. WBK hopes to produce this second report with greater input from both local communities and the relevant government Ministries for wetland conservation in Korea (those of Environment and Maritime Affairs and Fisheries). Through this process we will also try to win trust and eventually government support for the establishment of a Ramsar National Wetlands Committee, as strongly encouraged by the Ramsar Convention’s Resolutions. We also hope to assist our government to respond adequately to the Conference of the Party’s Resolution 21 (requesting an inventory of coastal wetlands and wetland loss, and the modification of existing policies in relation to intertidal wetlands), which was sponsored by the South Korean government in 1999 through consultation with WWF-Japan and Korean NGOs in 1999.

Although WBK is a very small NGO (with less than 300 members), we will continue to open-up the ERI process to elicit support from the general public and local communities, especially those adjacent to priority wetland areas, as well as other NGOs, academics and government officials. Supported in part by the Report Production fund provided by the Japan Fund for Global Environment and by some moneys from a Whitley Small Grants Award received in February 2001, we are endeavoring to produce a variety of educational materials on the YSE and its biodiversity, which we are distributing to our membership and educators at the local level, either during eco-tours, at meetings or through our home-page. We have worked (by mid- 2001) with three TV companies (Korean Broadcasting System, MBC and PSB) helping them to produce nationally broadcast documentaries explaining bird migration and the value of wetlands and in two of the programs also the problems of coastal wetland reclamation. We are also attending various international meetings in 2001, including the Asian Wetlands Symposium (in Penang, Malaysia in August) and the JAWAN symposium (in Tokyo, in September) where we will explain further the ERI and the Yellow Sea Eco-region’s importance, and hope to win wider regional support..

The aim of the ERI is to produce a vision which will contain at its core the maintenance of a viable, diverse and productive large-scale eco-system 50 years from now and on into the future. It is an aim close to the heart of WBK’s work and the needs of the people of this diverse and vibrant region.

References

Atsuo. T., 1994. Wetlands in an Urban Context in The Northeast Asia Wetland symposium Proceedings (FOE-Japan and WWF-Japan publication).

Moores, N. (ed) 1999. National NGOP Wetlands Report: Ramsar 1999.

Moores, N., Kim S-K, Park S-B. & S. Tobai (2001) Yellow Sea Ecoregion: Reconnaissance Report on Identification of Important Wetlands and Marine Areas for Biodiversity. Volume 2: South Korea.

Nial Moores, International Liaison, Wetlands and Birds Korea

91-2 MyeongRyun Dong,

Tongnae Gu, Busan

South Korea (607 802).

http://www.wbk.or.kr