Life in the DMZ: Turning a Diplomatic Failure into an Environmental Success

Author(s): LISA M. BRADY

Source: Diplomatic History , SEPTEMBER 2008, Vol. 32, No. 4, SPECIAL FORUM WITH
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY (SEPTEMBER 2008), pp. 585-611
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24916002

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 LISA M. BRADY

Life in the DMZ: Turning a Dipl

an Environmental Success

On 28 July 1953, representatives from several nations met at the tiny Korean
farming village of Panmunjom and inadvertently created one of Asia's most
important nature sanctuaries. Establishing a wildlife preserve was never a goal of
the armistice that ended the Korean War, of course, but it nevertheless is a
significant consequence of those diplomatic negotiations. A wide variety of
Korea's native plants and animals, as well as numerous migratory species, were
the direct beneficiaries. For some, like the red-crowned or Manchurian crane,
the existence of the sanctuary has meant the difference between survival and
pvtinr-finn

The accidental nature preserve coincides with the

long demilitarized zone (DMZ), which was set up as
hostilities and to establish neutral ground where Nor
work toward eventual reunification. Internal divisions within the two Koreas
and continued distrust between them, combined with the Cold War agendas of
the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and the United States,
ensured that the temporary divide took on a more permanent character. For
decades, the DMZ has symbolized diplomatic failure, but from an environmen
tal perspective, it is one of the Cold War's greatest successes.
The DMZ is a cross-section of the peninsula's geography. Approximately 40
miles north of Seoul, its western terminus bisects the estuarine delta created by
the confluence of the Han and Imjin rivers as they empty into the Yellow Sea.
From there it stretches through Korea s western and central lowlands (where
farming had been the major economic activity before the war) until it climbs
rolling foothills into the rugged, densely forested Taebaek-san Mountains,
which run along the eastern edge of the peninsula and slope precipitously to the
East Sea (Sea of Japan). Although narrow, the DMZ represents a nearly com
plete set of Korean ecosystems within its boundaries, ranging from wetlands to
grasslands to mountainous highlands, all of them largely untouched by human

i. A note on names: the spelling for Korean place names reflects that commonly found in
English-language documents. For individuals, I follow the Korean convention of placing the
surname first, excepting those whose published work lists their names according to Western
conventions and prominent figures, like Syngman Rhee, whose name order is typically reversed
in English-language sources.

Diplomatic History, Vol. 32, No. 4 (September 2008). © 2008 The Society for Historians of
American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street,
Maiden, MA, 02148, USA and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

5»5

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586 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

activities since the end of the war. Altho

DMZ had been managed and cultivated fo
since that conflict's end nature has flour
mines still in the area). A new ecological
war and maintained by diplomacy. In an i
diplomatic failure brought peace to a smal
for the peninsula's nonhuman residents.
Migratory birds in particular have ben
Smithsonian alerted its readers that the t
ing the extinction of some of Asia's mos
David R. Zimmerman, pointed to the
agreement and gave a brief, three-sente
"had been heavily settled and farmed. Th
was left alone." This last stage of the DM
man that if given a chance, "nature he
pointed to the work ot Dr. Ceorge Archi
since 1974 had been studying the white-n
the DMZ as safe feeding and resting gro
Archibald, too, the reversion of the D
nature heals itself."3 Its recovery could
intervention continued to be minimal in the area. Zimmerman warned that the

preserve "could quickly be ruined if a peace treaty were to end the need for a
buffer," but he hoped for the development of what he called "ornithological
diplomacy," where international cooperation to ensure the survival of the cranes
would trump any ideological or geopolitical agendas.4
Fifteen years after the Smithscmian article, Peter Matthiessen traveled to the
DMZ to cover the cranes' story for Audubon. Matthiessen, like Zimmerman,
noted the accidental nature of the wildlife preserve, but his interviews with Dr.
Archibald—still studying the cranes—were tinged with sadness. South Korea had
only just begun its major push to industrialize when Zimmerman wrote his article
in 1981; by the time Matthiessen visited, the nation had undergone a develop
mental and economic "miracle." It was also beginning to witness the environ
mental problems such as pollution and erosion that came with such rapid and
far-reaching change. In just a decade and a half, increased industrial and agricul
tural development across the nation had taken its toll on the crane populations, all
but eliminating them in the civilian control zone (CCZ), a 3-20 mile wide area
abutting the South Korean side of the DMZ.5 Matthiessen was encouraged,
however, that 85 percent of South Koreans polled by the Korea Environmental

2. David R. Zimmerman, "A Fragile Victory for Beauty on an Old Asian Battleground,"
Smithsonian 12 (October 1981): 57.
3. Ibid., 60.
4. Ibid., 63.
5. Peter Matthiessen, "Accidental Sanctuary," Audubon 98 (July-August 1996): 54.

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 T tu* nA\7 . r«n

Technology Research Institute saw the environm

economic development."6 Despite the setbacks in
sen ended on a hopeful note, reiterating Archibald
respectful it would be to those who had to die her
proiecieu as naruingers or peace ana morning canii. '
The DMZ and CCZ contain much of Korea's remaining biodiversi
reserves because most of the peninsula has been urbanized or developed
industrial or agricultural purposes. The DMZ has not undergone compre
sive ecological analysis for obvious reasons, but satellite data, scientific stu
the CCZ, and anecdotal evidence provide a basic catalog of the species that
claimed the territory since the end of the war. According to the research,
are over 1200 plant species, 83 fish varieties, 51 different mammals (represen
over half of the peninsula's total fauna types), and numerous birds, insect
microorganisms. Many of these species are listed as threatened or endang
and some were even thought to be extinct.8 Some of the more optim
accounts of the area's wildlife populations point not just to the cranes but
the possibility of the return of the Amur, or Siberian, tiger after a mor
fifty-year absence.9
The biodiversity in the DMZ and surrounding areas presents a un
opportunity not just for scientists and conservationists but for diplomats as
Interviewed for Technology Review about the DMZ, Arthur Westing, ecol
and former director of the United Nations Environment Programme's P
Security, and Environment Project, suggested that for the two Koreas,
ronmental issues may be the least provocative way of breaking the ice."1
means of facilitating that diplomatic thaw, Dr. Ke Chung Kim, a profes
of entomology and the director of Pennsylvania State University's C
for Biodiversity Research, proposed in 1994 the creation of a Korean Pe
Bioreserves System that would include the DMZ and a 3 mile buffer zon
either side, totaling 1600 square miles." Although Kim is only one of many

6. Ibid., 106.
7. Ibid., 107. Korea is known as the "Land of the Morning Calm."
8. Ke Chung Kim, "Preserving Biodiversity in Korea's Demilitarized Zone," Science 278
(10 October 1997): 242-43. See also Kwi-Gon Kim and Dong-Gil Cho, "Status and Ecological
Resource Value of the Republic of Korea's De-Militarized Zone," Landscape and Ecological
Engineering 1 (2005): 3-15. Kim and Cho's study examined the areas in the DMZ and CCZ
adjacent to the two railroads that now connect the two countries. Although the study was
limited, the results are still suggestive.
9. Norimitsu Onishi, "Does a Tiger Lurk in the Middle of a Fearful Sanctuary?," New York
Times (late ed., East Coast), 5 September 2004, sec. 1, p. 14. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/
09/o5/international/asia/o5dmz.html.
10. Joy Drohan, "Sustainably Developing the DMZ," Technology Review 99, no. 6 (August
September 1996): 17. For more on the DMZ issue, see "Maintaining No Man's Land,"
Environment 39 (December 1997): 24; Tom O'Neill, "Korea's Dangerous Divide: DMZ,"
National Geographic 204, no. 1 (July 2003): 2-26; and "Korean DMZ's Environmental
Treasures Need Protection," International CustomWire, 13 January 2004.
11. Ke Chung Kim, "Preserving Biodiversity in Korea's Demilitarized Zone," 242-43.

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588 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

have researched and studied the biodiversity

to propose making the area into a permanen
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) an
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have sup
Kim that such a park "has the potential not
region but also to ease the hostility between
ing mutually sustainable development of the
In the late 1990s, Kim's hopes captured
publications ranging from Science and Envir
and the New York Times.'4 Many of these s
preserving the DMZ's ecology as critical to a
tions between the two Koreas, while at the sa
terrible state of the peninsula's natural env
partly a pursuit of modernization, partly a g
led to vast deforestation, habitat loss, declin
cant air and soil pollution across the penins
as a symbol both for Korea's past and its fut
Regrettably, the topic has received very lit
press, and even there most discussions of th
continuing tensions. Military histories of
examine the diplomatic, strategic, and operat
of the DMZ.15 General histories of Korea jus

12. The Korean-born Kim has done a great deal to h

only by proposing the Korean Peace Bioreserves Sy
founding the international organization the DMZ
preserve the DMZ. Ted Turner, the American media
"Ted Turner: Turn Korean DMZ into Peace Park,"
from http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/200
November 2005). Turner was a keynote speaker at a c
August 2005, where he delivered an address titled
Development for Peace in Korea." Information on an
found at the DMZ Forum website, http://www.dmzf
13. Drohan, "Sustainably Developing the DMZ."
14. The following list is representative but not
Developing the DMZ"; "Maintaining No Man's L
Civilization 3 (October-November 1996): 44-45; Mi
Korea's DMZ Conceals a Haven for Animals," Wall Str
Ai; Josie Glausiusz, "Healer of a Divided Land: In
21 (November 2000): 30; Lucille Craft, "Breaking D
Peace, on the Korean Peninsula?" Japan Times, 17
www.japantimes.c0.jp/cgi-bin/fv20020917al.html (
Kim and Edward O. Wilson, "The Land that War Pr
December 2002; and Nick Easen, "Korea's DMZ: T
able from http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/as
23 February 2005).
15. Despite its being known as the "forgotten war,
secondary) examining the military history of the Ko
Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2 vols. (Pri
The Limited War (New York, 1964); Matthew B. Ridg

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the nation's cultural, social, and political development.'6 Nature often gets only
glancing attention in these studies, despite its fundamental importance in
shaping Korean history. In light of the ecological developments in the DMZ,
nature can no longer be ignored. One source that does address this issue, if only
briefly, is journalist Don Oberdorfer's 1997 book The Two Koreas: A Contempo
rary History. His first chapter, "Where the Wild Birds Sing," opens with an
image of white-naped cranes peacefully floating above a verdant landscape
riotous with wildflowers and inhabited by hundreds of other species. The DMZ,
in Oberdorfer's words, is "a richly forested, unspoiled ... strip of land that
stretches like a ribbon .. . across the waist of the Korean peninsula." He further
noted that the resident species generally remain unmolested by human inter
lopers because of "a densely planted underground garden of deadly land mines,
which the birds and animals somehow use a sixth-sense to avoid."'7
Whether or not nonhuman species can detect land mines instinctively is
debatable, but Oberdorfer clearly demonstrated both that the DMZ is impor
tant ecologically and that its future as a safe habitat for Korea's wildlife is far
from secure. "The serenity [in the DMZ] is deceptive," he warned. "All sides are
heavily armed and ready at a moment's notice to fight another bloody and
devastating war. Now that the Berlin wall has fallen and the Soviet Union has
collapsed, this pristine nature preserve marks the most dangerous and heavily
fortified border in the world," one that has been "violated by tunnels, defiled by
infiltrators, and scarred by armed skirmishes." Even the "melodic call of its
birds" cannot compete with the "harsh propaganda" spewing from the loud
speakers both sides have erected to antagonize or seduce their enemies across
the ideological and geographical divide.'8
The repercussions of two competing economic and ideological systems have
left Korea's environment at risk, and the DMZ is no exception. According to a
2003 CNN report, "While poverty alleviation would likely prevent North
Korea from putting much weight on nature conservation in the DMZ, for its
southern neighbor it would be the prospect of further economic development
and integration with the North that would be a driving force for development."'9
There is reason to hope, however, both for a unified Korea and for the contin
ued existence of the nature preserve, even if those two goals seem contradictory
on the surface. The end of the Cold War and occasional thaws in diplomatic

Challenge (Garden City, NY, 1967); William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History
(Princeton, NJ, 1995); William Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and
Strategic History (Princeton, NJ, 2002); and U.S. Department of the Army, United States Army
in the Korean War, 4 vols. (Washington, DC, 1961-1972).
16. Three very useful sources on Korean history generally are Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place
in the Sun: A Modern History (New York, 1997); Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contem
porary History (1997; rev. and updated ed., New York, 2001); and Roger Tennant, A History of
Korea (London, 1996).
17. Oberdorfer, Two Koreas, 1.
18. Ibid., 2.
19. Easen, "Korea's DMZ: The Thin Green Line."

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590 : DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

relations between North and South Korea finally have brou

tive into the realm of the possible, although realization of it
away. A growing interest in maintaining the DMZ as a natu
and international environmental organizations and by the e
may prevent the large-scale development that would surely f
Korea's political past and its environmental future are ine
What follows is an analysis of the diplomatic and economic d
Korean Peninsula during the latter half of the twentieth centur
of environmental history. Integrating diplomatic and envir
methods reveals not just a fuller view of the implications of
played out in Korea but also provides a reminder that the lin
choices and environmental changes must not be ignored. Far
the relationship is unidirectional, this study also shows that
historical force in its own right and that its ability to thrive de
has shaped cultural and political decisions with significant
tions. 1 his essay, then, is an exploratory study that uses some ot the most
important scholarship on economic and political trends in both Koreas during the
Cold War as a foundation for new insights into the diplomatic and environmental
implications of establishing the DMZ as an international peace park.

background: wwii, the Korean war, and the creation

OF TWO KOREAS

Once a united land, the Korean Peninsula no longer r

Su-Kang-San," or land of embroidered rivers and moun
source of national pride.20 The geography of the Korean
by the eastern spine of mountains formed by the nor
southern Taebaek-san ranges and their foothills, which
quarters of the land area of the peninsula. Its rich biod
muse for Korean poets and artists for centuries, and its m
tiger, plays an important role in Korea's founding myth
the peninsula's natural wealth, along with its strategic l
a target of expansionistic powers.
Geography, according to Oberdorfer, "dealt Korea a p
role." The peninsula is situated in "a strategic but dang
that made it vulnerable to invasion (more than nine hun
two thousand years) and subject to occupation by powers
Mongols, Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Unio

20. Ke Chung Kim, "Preserving Biodiversity in Korea's Demi

21. For a translation of the Korean nation's origin story, see Cu
Sun, 23-24. See also "Dan-Gun, First King of Korea," in Folk Tales
trans. Zong In-Sob (Elizabeth, NJ, 1982), 3-4. Tigers are the subjec
legends and stories included in Zong's collection.
22. Oberdorfer, Two Koreas, 4.

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 Life in the DMZ : 591

was largely tolerated, even at times welcomed, Japan's was vehemently opposed.
The enmity between Korea and Japan has a long history, dating back to the
Japanese invasion of the peninsula in the sixteenth century. Japan's industrial
ization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its subsequent
search for resources led to its aggressive expansionism. Although other nations
had interests in exploiting Korea's resources (including gold, coal, and timber),
Japan's claims gained priority after its victory in the Russo-Japanese War in
1905.23 Just five years later, Japan officially declared Korea a possession and
began a thirty-five-year occupation. Thus, outside interests—not internal
attempts at industrialization or modernization—initiated a decades-long period
of natural resource exploitation and environmental degradation that signaled a
dramatic change from Korea's traditional relationship with the natural world.
Historically, Korea was an agricultural nation. Much of its cultivable land lies
in the south and west, although a narrow fringe along the coastal areas in the
north does provide additional cropland. The region's bimodal climate, with
win, ui y vv iiiLwi j a il va iiva l, vvv^l a lu i iinv^i o, pu3L3 u.Aia\^Liv_ ^naiiv^JLigv_o lui dgii^uiLUit,

which Koreans early on adapted to and managed through terracing, irrigatio

schemes, and village-based farming. A feudal system of land tenure, headed by
the yangban (landlords), emerged at least as early as the fourteenth century.
Under Japanese occupation in the early twentieth century, this social system
changed little as the yangban integrated into the colonial bureaucracy/4 The
political changes led to changes in Korean agricultural practices, however
Tenant farmers increasingly lost political and economic power under th
Japanese occupation and, as their increased taxes and rents caused them t
default on loans, many chose the even harsher life of slash-and-burn agricultur
in the mountains, which some have argued was the origin of Korea's significan
deforestation problem.25

23. This deal was negotiated by President Theodore Roosevelt and is considered by some
to be the first betrayal of Korea by the United States. Roosevelt essentially exchanged Japanes
recognition of American rights in the Philippines for American acceptance of Japan's claims i
Korea. Oberdorfer, Two Koreas, 5. See also Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun, 141-42.
24. For a description of early farming practices, see Tennant, History of Korea, 2. For a
description of Korean social strata, see Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun, 51-53. Peasants wer
usually either tenant farmers or slaves. The term yangban is applied to the landed gentry of the
Choson Dynasty (1392-1910) and also to a class of scholar-officials. See Tennant, History o
Korea, 135-57, and John Lie, Han Unbound: The Political Economy of South Korea (Stanford, CA,
1998), 5-18, passim. Cumings uses the latter definition, Korea's Place in the Sun, 141.
25. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. 1, Liberation and the Emergence o
Separate Regimes, 1945-1947 (Princeton, NJ, 1981), 39-45. As of 2005, 66 percent of the natio
was forested, but colonization, the Korean War, and postwar efforts of reconstruction create
a situation in which "these forests had been badly devastated from reckless logging for
firewood, reclamation, and slash-and-burn farming methods." Cheong Wa Dae (Office o
the President), "Natural Environment: Forests and Farmlands," 2; http://english
president.go.kr/cwd/en/korea/Korea_03_5_c.htm!?m_def=5&ss_def=3 (last accessed 18
November 2005). After the Korean presidential election in 2007, the Office of the President
web site changed and no longer contains this page. Printed copies of this page, and others cite
herein, are in author's collection.

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 592 : DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

In addition to expanding and commercializing Korea's agr

Japanese also initiated industrialization there by establishin
industry throughout the peninsula. Furthermore, the Japan
extensive railroads linking Korea with ports and markets as
and Paris, connecting the peninsula with "new forms of exc
Japan but with the world market system."26 In addition to rail
built extensive highways and expanded Korean seaports, an
had a much better-developed transport and communications
any other East Asian country save Japan."27 Thus, in a very sh
Korea was transformed from a feudalistic agrarian society
agrarian society with the bare bones of an industrial econom
Cumings has suggested that "it was the simultaneity of the co
and the rise of industry that was so critical to shaping the fate
Japanese and thereafter. This was, in essence, the onset of
revolution."28 The effects of these transformations would
aiung uic peimibuia, ab uie oeuunu vvuiiu war liiterveiieu ana traiibrornieu

Korea in unimaginable ways.

The rapidity of development and the circumstance under which it
left Korea and its people in a vulnerable position at the end of Wor
Although this situation is not unique to Korea—other nations suffe
conditions as decolonization and Cold War antagonisms reshaped
litical scene—Korea was one of only two nations physically rent
postwar wrangling for power, and of the two, the only one to
colonized before the war.29 That colonization "was intense and bitter
to Cumings, and it "shaped postwar Korea deeply." Cumings ex
brought development and underdevelopment, agrarian growth and
tenancy, industrialization and extraordinary dislocation, political m
and deactivation; it spawned a new role for the central state, new sets
political leaders, communism and nationalism, armed resistance and t
collaboration; above all, it left deep fissures and conflicts that have gn
Korean soul ever since."30 Koreans faced these issues as a single, if
nation until 15 August 1945, when the Allies hastily divided the peni
northern and southern zones at the 38th parallel.31

20. Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun, 166.

27. Ibid., 167.
28. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 1: 48.
29. Germany was the other nation, of course, that was divided in two. Vietnam could also
fall into this category, but its division was much shorter in duration.
30. Cumings's chapter on the colonial period is excellent, and provides much more detailed
analysis of the political and economic ramifications of Japanese occupation. See "Eclipse,
1905-1945," in Korea's Place in the Sun, 139-84. Quotation from p. 148.
31. For a description of the decision process, see Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War, 11-12,
and Cumings, Korea's Place i?i the Sun, 187. Consideration of the issue began on 10 August 1945,
immediately following Japan's first intimations that it would consider surrender. General
George Lincoln chose the 38th parallel, Colonels Charles Bonesteel and Dean Rusk confirmed

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 Life in the DMZ : 593

The 38th parallel was initially intended "to be a purely military demarcation
of a temporary nature to facilitate the surrender [of] the Japanese forces in
Korea."32 Although the ultimate decision on where to split Korea took only a
matter of minutes, the diplomatic discussions and negotiations regarding the
nation's postwar fate had been going on for several years. On 1 December 1943,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek issued the
Cairo Declaration, which stated, "The Three Great Allies are fighting this war
to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for them
selves and have no thought of territorial expansion." Japan was to be stripped of
all the territory it had "taken by violence and greed" and, "mindful of the
enslavement of the people of Korea," the three Allied powers were "determined
that in due course Korea shall become free and independent."33 Although the
Cairo Declaration did not provide for the division of the Korean peninsula, the
clause "in due course" did allow for a period of further administration by foreign
powers.
nri _
i iiv^ vl umuii vv ao nut ui^iuu^u jlii vjj.ai-u.iii: uiv^ v>anvj auuii

because it had not yet enter

on 8 August 1945, however
ing Korea's fate. The Mosco
roles for all four allies and
development as a precurs
USSR Joint Commission th
regions on either side of
Americans in the southern
United States, Great Britain
This trusteeship would adv

its suitability, and the proposal

his General Order no. I, which o
38th parallel was unfortunate for
In 1904, hoping to avoid a mili
Peninsula, Japan proposed carv
parallel. Russia refused, the Russ
Korea. Rusk later noted that if h
a different line of demarcation.
32. Soon Sung Cho, "American
Korean Relations, 1882-1982, IF
1982), 66.
33. "The Cairo Declaration," in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
The United States and the Korean Problem: Documents, 1943-1953 (Washington, DC, 1953)
(hereafter Documents), 1.
34. "U.S.S.R. Declaration of War against Japan," in Documents, 1. General Douglas Mac
Arthur's General Order no. 1, issued in Yokohama, Japan on 7 September 1945, was the initial
document determining the governance of postwar Korea, but outlined only the U.S. authority
on the peninsula. General Order no. 1 stated: "All powers of Government over the territory
of Korea south of 38° north latitude and the people thereof will be for the present exercised
under my [MacArthur's] authority." See "Establishment of Boundary at the 38th Parallel," in
Documents, 2-3.

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594 : diplomatic history

for up to five years, after which Koreans would elect

independent government.35
Almost immediately after the Joint Commission wa
and the Americans began pushing their own Cold W
opposing political factions within Korea. The Americ
tions of the Western-educated and fiercely anti-Com
The Soviets backed the former guerilla commander K
had consolidated his political power, Rhee in the sou
and Kim in the North. Each claimed to head the legi
entire peninsula. Both the Soviets and the Americans
Korea later that year, believing that their respective a
establishing a single, unified government for the pe
Rhee nor Kim would compromise. With the permissi
Mao Zedong, Kim initiated military operations on
intention of unifying the peninsula under his Commu
Thp krnrpan Wfctr was nnK/ the first mainr hattlecrrrmnrl in the mnrh larorer

Cold War between communism and democratic capitalism.37 Despite its inter
national character and importance, the Cold War took on localized meanings for
Koreans, North and South, and had a devastating physical impact on the pen
insula. The hot war in Korea wrought incredible physical damage. Fighting
ranged across the entire peninsula and, along the 38th parallel in particular, the

35- "The Moscow Agreement," in Documents, 4. China's role in the administration of

postwar Korea changed dramatically, of course, with the Communist victory in that nation's
civil war in 1949. After that point, China allied itself with the Soviet Union, and the Cold War
tensions in the region were increased significantly.
36. Scholars have debated the origins of the war. Bruce Cumings has argued that it was
initially a civil war, and only later became part of the larger Cold War once the Chinese, Soviets,
and Americans deployed troops to the peninsula in support of their respective Korean allies.
See Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. 1. Cumings reinforced this argument in his
general history of Korea, Korea's Place in the Sun, 238 ff. Others, like William Stueck and Don
Oberdorfer, have suggested that the war had both internal and external origins, neither o
which can be separated from the other. According to Stueck, the war "cannot be understood
without heavy reference to nations and forces beyond the peninsula." Certainly, the fighting
was initially between Koreans, and the war "contained an important civil dimension," but its
origins "can only be explained through the interaction of Korean and non-Korean elements and
through decisions made in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington, as well as in Pyongyang and
Seoul." Stueck further argued that although the Koreans on both sides of the 38th parallel were
"intensely" nationalist, "their fate was so closely tied to the designs of the United States, the
Soviet Union, and China that their ability to act independently was severely circumscribed."
Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War, 66. See also Oberdorfer, Two Koreas, 8-11. Allan Millett
bridges these two approaches, suggesting that partisan conflict beginning in 1948 was the actual
start to the war, but that these internal conflicts were shaped by international agendas. See Allan
Millett, The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning (Lawrence, KS, 2003).
37. I characterize the Cold War here as a conflict between political and economic systems
generally, recognizing that there are vast differences among the nations involved. Often, the
democratic capitalist states (the United States and Great Britain in particular) supported
anti-Communist totalitarian regimes which were neither democratic nor capitalist themselves,
but were nonetheless considered part of the "Free World." For a concise history of the Cold
War, see John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A History (New York, 2005).

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 Life in the DMZ : 595

battles were long and protracted. Widespread destruction of cities, farms, and
forests left many areas on the peninsula devastated. American air campaigns
incorporated firebombing with napalm and targeted and destroyed North
Korean irrigation dams that supplied the nation with water for three quarters of
its agricultural production.'8 The massive amounts of ordnance used in bombing
campaigns left visible scars on the landscape that were still obvious decades after
the armistice was signed.39 Whereas these changes to the landscape were imme
diate and devastating, the armistice, division, and resulting ideological antago
nism would result in more long-term, and ultimately more destructive,
environmental consequences.
nruce turnings noteu 111 ms uook lyurw J\urea: nnuirjtr t^uunrry mar me
Korean War was "a war between two conflicting social and economic systems."4"
The intense ideological competition was not limited to military confrontation
and political posturing, but played out in both sides' push for economic devel
opment. After the war, the demilitarized zone at the 38th parallel provided a
neat boundary along which both sides could compare their progress. In 1972,
Johan Galtung, then part of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo,
suggested that both Koreas "helped create a Korea in their image . . . making
ample use of the 1945 division as well as of past Korean history. If both pairs
believed the other pair to be fundamentally aggressive, why should they not
make the most out of 'their' Korea as a buffer zone to protect themselves?"4'
Both nations' ambitions necessarily depended on expanded exploitation of their
natural resources, which led to severe environmental degradation on both sides
of the DMZ.

foreground: postwar development as a factor of cold

WAR POLICIES

Development after the 1950-1953 Korean War took on

sophical importance as well as economic purpose for both
rapid industrialization and astonishing agricultural pro
similar endeavors in South Korea until the 1970s. The lac

38. Bruce Cumings, North Korea: Another Country (New Yor

suggests that the use of napalm in Korea exceeded that in Vietnam
it had greater destructive effect, particularly because of the larg
population of North Korea than North Vietnam (ibid., 16).
39. During a visit to Kaesong in 1987, historian Bruce Cumin
through the streets of Kaesong in the early morning hours and fi
could gaze upon Mount Song-ak in its fullness: and there on its
pockmarks, still easily visible, made by the pounding of southern a
which sits along the 38th parallel just nortb of the DMZ, was the c
(918-1392), from which the Westernized name for the nation is deriv
237.
40. Cumings, North Korea, 6.
41. Johan Galtung, "Divided Nations as a Process: One State, *Iw
The Case of Korea," Journal of Peace Research 9, no. 4 (1972): 347.

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596 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

in the southern half of the peninsula in th

to support Kim II Sung's claims about
Communist Utopia.42 North Korea's earl
hensive political consolidation under Kim
through nationalization of industry and
strategies, and "moral incentive policies."
to encourage workers and frequent exho
ceaselessly and selflessly for nonmaterial
Mass production campaigns such as "Ca
Day Speed Batde" urged industrial and ag
and output for the good of the state.4S
pretation of Marxist-Leninist philosophy
unique history as a subjected nation.
Kim's fiercely nationalistic juche id
reliance") urged North Koreans to wor
intervention, nut reality neiied tne ideal. Uespite iNortn Korea s more recent
history of intense isolationism, the nation's early industrial progress was only
made possible by help from its Communist allies. U.S. bombing during
the 1950-1953 war destroyed the heavy industry that had been established
previously in the area under Japanese occupation. Almost immediately after the
armistice was signed, Soviet bloc countries in a show of Communist solidarity
helped Kim rebuild those facilities.
Industrial might was the key to independence according to the. juche philoso
phy and agricultural output was emphasized only as it supported North Korea's
industrial development. Indeed, similar to Mao's Great Leap Forward, Kim II
Sung's Chollima Work Team Movement, instituted in the late 1950s, "was
designed to mobilize human and material resources in agriculture for the pri
ority development of heavy industry." The Chollima Movement had broader
implications as well, in that its primary goal "was to combine the programs of
ideological indoctrination and agricultural reform . . . based on a general-line

42. John Lie suggests that the primary reason Kim succeeded in gaining popular support
for his policies in the North (apart from being a revolutionary hero who fought vigorously
against the Japanese occupation) was his immediate implementation of land reform. This was
an extremely important issue because Korean peasants had been under the thumbs of the
yangban landlords for centuries. Conversely, the South Korean government, heavily influenced
by the United States, initially opposed any kind of land reform, making for a difficult transition.
See John Lie, Han Unbound, 9.
43. Byoung-Lo Philo Kim, Two Koreas in Development: A Comparative Study of Principles and
Strategies of Capitalist and Communist Third World Development (New Brunswick, NJ and
London, 1992), 2. Kim notes that such development is effective only in the short term, when
it "can be achieved by expanded utilization of natural resources and unemployed labor," and
tends to fall behind in the long term because "productivity must be raised through more
advanced technology" and because such rapid changes tend to exhaust motivation (ibid., 3).
44. Ibid., 148. Other incentives were "mass movements, moral exhortations, and political
campaigns" (ibid.).
45. Ibid., 127.

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 Life in the DMZ : 597

policy with moralistic fervor and ideological appeal to increase maximum pro
ductivity."46 North Korea's focus on heavy industry was not just a factor of
ideology, however. It also reflected its available natural resources. Where the
North is poor in arable land, it is rich in minerals, controlling 90 percent of the
peninsula's lead deposits and 98 percent of its bituminous coal.47 Initially, North
Korea's development went unimpeded, and for twenty-five years after the DMZ
firmly separated the two Koreas, the North enjoyed far greater economic
success than the South.48 Its success, however, was fragile, literally and ideologi
cally, and began to founder once the initial benefits of such things as chemical
fertilizers, pesticides, and industrialization took their toll on the soil and water
of the nation.49
Given the restrictive nature of North Korea's contact with the world, histo
rians face great difficulty in assessing the environmental consequences of that
nation's development policies.50 Satellite images are one good indicator of the
nation's current problem with deforestation. Air, water, and soil pollution are
more difficult to document, as are problems with biodiversity and other envi
ronmental concerns. In 2003, UNEP published a report on North Korea,
providing a long-awaited remedy to this dearth of information. The report,
"State of the Environment: DPR Korea," as with all such UNEP reports, was
completed in conjunction with the host state. The statistical information and
a^iciiLiiic udid iidvc nui uccii cALciiidiiy vcjLiiicu üxiu Liic i cpui L may nuiicpicscni

an objective assessment of the possible negative ramifications of the Kim

ty's policies. However, it does point to some issues North Korea recogn
imperative to remedy.
The UNEP report focused on five general categories of concern for
Korea: forest depletion, water quality degradation, air pollution, land
dation, and diminished biodiversity. A thorough reading of each sectio
cates that the foundational problem North Korea faces, and the o
underlies all other problems, is deforestation. According to the
"Increase of population and the demand for food and firewood has exe
pressure on the forest ecosystem of the country resulting [in] loss of h

46. Ibid., 148. Byoung-Lo Philo Kim noted earlier in his book that the C
Movement was responsible for impressive industrial growth in the 1950s and 19
porting "41.7 and 36.6 percent during the Three-Year and Five-Year Plans, respe
(p. 121).
47. Ibid., 77. Significant resources for iron, steel, zinc, and copper production also support
North Korea's heavy industry, the majority of which is fueled by coal-fired power stations.
Ibid., 140.
48. Cumings points to published CIA data indicating that the South Korean economy only
caught up to the North Korean one in 1978. Cumings, North Korea, 185. This is also evident
in John Lie's assessment of the two nations' economic growth in the same period. See Lie, Han
Unbound. Both sources state that the South's real economic boom occurred in the 1980s, and at
that time overshot the North's capability to catch up.
49. Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine (Washington, DC, 2001), 13-14.
50. This has long been a problem for researchers. See Andrea Matles Savada, ed., North
Korea: A Country Study (Washington, DC, 1993), 55.

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598 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

and frequent occurrence of natural disas

report contended that the nation has lon
the problem. "Even during the war," the
the entire people continued for reforesta
of the Military Commission." The policie
successfully, the report conceded, lar
industrial development."52
Likewise, water, air, land, and biodiversit
as well as to continuing development pla
section of the report: pollution, land degr
be attributed to a growing population,
fertilizers and pesticides, and large-scale e
on biodiversity, the report concluded, "B
protection and development in DPR Kore
the plan for biodiversity conservation in
111C11L. 1 iO I1U VV V_ V V^l a LUllU^llV.^ lu IgllUl^. [U1WJ ^»1

centrate heavily on development alone"53 (see Figures i and 2). F

report noted, "The conflict between socio-economic progress and a pat
sustainable development is likely to be further aggravated unless emer
can be settled in time." The report does not explain precisely w
"emerging issues" are, but urges "both bilateral and multilateral int
cooperation in the environmental field."S4
Despite identifying numerous problems with North Korea's enviro
status, the report errs on the side of caution in criticizing the nation
It pointed to several laws passed to address environmental issues, inclu
"Law on Environmental Protection," the "Land Law," and the "Fo
and to efforts by the government to educate the North Korean popul
environmental protection through such means as TV and radio
ments, artistic activities, and "Wild Animals Awareness Month."55 Th
of such programs is not clear, and in light of the juche philosophy
rigidity of policy resulting from the Kims' claims of infallibility, a
change under the continued Communist regime seems unlikely. Alth
difficult to prove that all the environmental changes that took plac
Korea had direct connections to the larger ideological conflict of

51. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), "State of the Environ

Korea, 2003" (Klong Luang, Thailand, 2003), 23. The report is available fro
www.rrcap.unep.org/reports/soe/dprksoe.cfm (accessed 10 January 2006).
52. Ibid., 23-24. The report points to this particular incident as the beginn
"reforestation policy": "Since the great leader Comrade Kim II Sung planted t
Moonsu Hill in Pyongyang City on 6 April 1947 in order to publicize the need for
throughout the country, many efforts have been undertaken for afforestation/refore
year in DPR Korea" (p. 23).
53. Ibid., 58.
54. Ibid., 65.
55. Ibid., 58.

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 Life in the DMZ : 599

Figure i: Bridge of No Return looking toward North Korea. The lighter areas in the center
of the image are bare soil, vulnerable to erosion. If North Korea continues its intensive
exploitation of its natural resources, the land may never be able to recover. Making the DMZ
a permanent nature preserve might help to mitigate the environmental problems both Koreas
face. Photo by author.

•1

•"S1IB Hjl .. ■Jtx—'' ***

Figure 2: View of Kijong-dong, DPR Korea from a Panmunjom viewing area. Known as
"Peace Village" north of the DMZ and "Propaganda Village" south of it, Kijong-dong (or
Gijeong-dong) sits directly opposite Daeseong-dong in South Korea. Although the southern
village has been permanendy inhabited for many generations, Kijong-dong is home only to a
skeleton maintenance crew. Despite its lack of population, the scars of economic and ideologi
cal competition can be seen in the extensive clearing on the mountain behind the buildings.
Establishing the DMZ as a bioreserve may belie the South's cynical moniker and prove the
North's vision of the area to be prophetic. Photo by author.

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6oO : DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

War, studies of other Communist nations' environmental

strong correlation.'6
It is clear, however, that the U.S.-backed government in
development as an imperative to stave off a Communist tak
John Lie, suggested, "The threat of North Korea—and beh
international communism—provided ample motivation for
offer vital military and economic support to South Korea."5
Eder noted in Poisoned Prosperity that "Koreans and Ameri
recognized that the South's security could not be maintaine
growth and modernization at all levels of life."'8 In addition
ests in Korea, that nation's development was also a mea
revitalization of Japan's devastated postwar economy. Cumin
World War II, Korea had "growing importance to America
part of a new, dual strategy of containing communism and r
industrial economy as a motor of the world economy."59 Ind
V^UiU VVdl UtllUU, JUUU1 1VU1 td StlVtU <111 1111UU1 IdllL lUlt 111 Lilt iTVllltl ILdll C*±

containment through political stability and economic growth.

The first of these objectives—political stability—was ne
second—economic growth—but it proved very difficult t
Korea's liberation from Japan in 1945 through the late 19
struggled with almost continuous political upheaval, despite h
presidents for its first thirty-two years of existence. Peasant
reform regularly revolted, student protestors demanded real
occasional assassinations and military coups thwarted U.S. hope
productive South Korea. Both the Syngman Rhee (1945-1961)
Hee (1961-1980) administrations enjoyed moments of calm, bu
dissent made economic development difficult to sustain.
One solution to these challenges was to address a long-stand
inequity—land distribution. In 1949, Rhee enacted a law t
holdings at 7.5 acres and provided compensation for dispo

56. Perhaps the best indication that Kim's Cold War-era developmen
blame is to look at its closest neighbor, geographically and ideologically:
of China. Judith Shapiro ably demonstrated the problems Mao's Commun
China's environment in Mao's War against Nature: Politics and the Environme
China (New York, 2001). The Soviet Union also had tremendous environ
described in Douglas R. Weiner, Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation, and
in Soviet Russia (Pittsburgh, 2000), and Douglas R. Wiener, A Little Corner
Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev (Berkeley, CA and Los Angele
57. Lie, Han Unbound, 166. This becomes especially true when Ronal
president in 1980, the same year Park is assassinated and Chun Doo Wa
South Korea. "Instead of continuing Carter's stress on human right
single-minded anticommunist policy that tolerated repressive but friend
Unbound, 122.
58. Norman Eder, Poisoned Prosperity: Development, Modernization and
South Korea (Armonk, NY and London, 1996), 5.
59. Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun, 209-10.

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 Life in the DMZ : 601

?flko — JM . ».

mp ^**52*^
*ssa» »——•
»<iA
! *

US StSI
3?ISE BjsfAj auiffl B«ga|
~ ' -10D1.1002 J
Figure 3: A bag of "DMZ Rice." Grown by the farmers of Da
settlement allowed in the DMZ, the rice is both a staple for sur
souvenir for the thousands of tourists who visit the DMZ each

Implementation did not occur until 1952, howev

accidental—that year military stalemate set in and R
beleaguered regime—and it ultimately "contributed t
defeat."60 Land reform successfully curtailed any lo
ment and finally destroyed the centuries-oldyangban
changed agricultural practices in South Korea. The pe
were no longer responsible to landlords, whose status
landownership, but instead answered to the demands o
Lie argued resulted in the "commodification of agrar
This "irreversible and accelerated process" led to Ove
and "marked the end of an ecologically sustainab
redistribution, based partly on an ethic of social ref
toward combating Communist sympathies, was only
nomic development and subsequent environmental de
Substantial economic changes did not take hold in
the ouster of Rhee in 1961, however. Rhee's rabid
prevented him from fully integrating with Japan's g
step in Korean economic development. Under the
Hee, the 1965 normalization treaty with Japan brou
immediate infusion of capital into the Korean eco
brought a development strategy with serious environ

60. Lie, Han Unbound, 4-18; quotation from p. 11.

61. Ibid., 16.

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 6o2 : diplomatic history

nation adopted "the low-technology, labor-intensive

low value-added production that Japanese companies
Another development in the 1960s that served to i
only into the expanding Asian economy but the U.S.
Vietnam War. That conflict underlined Korea's strat
crucial catalyst for South Korea's economic and indu
Koreans not only provided troops to the military effo
important trading partner with the United States, pr
other light manufactures. By the 1970s, nearly three
exports were to either Japan or the United States.63
ization spurt in the 1960s and early 1970s was, thus, a
and externally derived Cold War policies. Taken as a
dramatic implications for the nation's people and its
Deforestation and pollution were two major conseq
push to develop. As in North Korea, the visible effe
South are clear on current satellite images of the pe
subsistence to commercialized agriculture after the
for deforestation, as more and more land was neede
cities and industrial centers. Erosion caused by defore
tion of the Park administration as early as 1962. Th
government instituted a nationwide retorestation and
Although the policy was largely successful in increasi
sacrificed biodiversity for economic growth by prom
economically viable conifer species.64 Economic deve
mental health.
Likewise, the "fundamental reason for the pollution
state's single-minded stress on economic growth," ac
compounding factor was the effect of industriali
concept of nature. The Cheong Wa Dae (South Korean
noted, "Although the vast majority remained in awe
forefront of national development began embracing t
ment is an object to be conquered and used to one's o
cut down, factories were built, and pesticides sprayed
disregard for their impact on the environment."66

62. Ibid., 60.

63. This summary of Korea's economic rise is adapted from Lie, "Muddling toward a
Take-Off," in Han Unbound, 43-74.
64. According to the official website of the Office of the President, the South Korean
government instituted a nationwide program on erosion control and reforestation in 1962.
Cheong Wa Dae (Office of the President), "Natural Environment: Forests and Farmlands," 2.
(Page no longer available; copy in author's collection. See note 25.)
65. Lie, Han Unbound, 162.
66. Cheong Wa Dae, "Environment: Overview," 1; http://english.president.go.kr/cwd/en/
korea/Korea_03_5.html?m_def=5&ss_def=3 (last accessed 18 November 2005). Page no longer
available; copy in author's collection (see note 25).

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 Life in the DMZ : 603

similarly argued that the development of a market-oriented society in South

Korea came with negative environmental impacts, largely because Koreans
did not associate environmental destruction with the market and economic
growth.67 Indeed, according to professor of urban planning Cho Myung-Rae,
"the environment was viewed ambivalently either as something people were
subordinate to or as something to be overcome or transformed in order to create
a better material life."68
The first official recognition of a problem with industrial pollution coincided
with Park's first Five Year Economic Development Plan in 1962. The South
Korean government passed a "Pollution Prevention Act" the following year, but
because of a lack of resources, it had little impact on diminishing the industrial
smoke that had become "a symbol of Korea's economic development."6' Four
vear«? later health nrnhlem<; and acrrirnltnral damacre hecran to emertre near I Than

the nation's first industrial complex. Monetary compensation for victims and
resettlement programs—not environmental cleanup—represented the govern
ment's answer to complaints and requests for assistance. Grassroots antipollution
and victims' rights organizations formed in response. According to sociologist
Yohei Harashima, however, "under the authoritarian political regime of the late
1960s, the government regarded antipollution movements as antigovernmen
tal."70 Such opposition to public protest created the conditions that led to the
outbreak between 1983 and 1986 of pollution-related diseases near Onsan,
another industrial complex.7' Little environmental progress was made until South
Korea began to democratize and "carried out massive structural reforms in social
and economic domains to join the ranks of advanced countries."72

67. Lee Hongkyun, "Environmental Awareness and Environmental Practice in Korea,"

Korea Journal 44, no. 3 (Autumn 2004): 182.
68. Cho Myung-Rae, "Emergence and Evolution of Environmental Discourses in South
Korea," Korea Journal 4, no. 3 (Autumn 2004): 143.
69. Yohei Harashima, "Effects of Economic Growth on Environmental Policies in
Northeast Asia," Environment 42 (July-August 2000): 32.
70. Ibid.
71. The so-called Onsan disease had similar symptoms to Minimata disease, which had
developed in Japan three decades earlier. Several articles discuss Onsan disease as a case study
or as a pivotal moment in the development of South Korean environmentalism. See Xuemei Bai
and Hidefumi Imura, "A Comparative Study of Urban Environment in East Asia: Stage Model
of Urban Environmental Evolution," International Review for Environmental Strategies 1, no. 1
(Summer 2000): 135-58; Moon Chung-in and Lim Sung-hack, "Weaving through Paradoxes:
Democratization, Globalization, and Environment Politics in South Korea," East Asian Review
15, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 43-70; Harashima, "Effects of Economic Growth on Environmental
Policies"; and Ku Do-Wan, "The Korean Environmental Movement: Green Politics through
Social Movement," Korea Journal 44, no. 3 (Autumn 2004): 185-219. For a scientific analysis of
the disease, see Chul-Hwan Koh et al., "Analysis of Trace Organic Contaminants in Sediment,
Pore Water, and Water Samples from Onsan Bay, Korea: Instrumental Analysis and In Vitro
Gene Expression Assay," Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 21, no. 9 (2002): 1796-1803.
72. Cheong Wa Dae, "Environment: Overview," 1; http://english.president.go.kr/cwd/en/
korea/Korea_03_5.html?m_def=5&ss_def=3 (last accessed 18 November 2005). (Page no longer
available; copy in author's collection. See note 25.) On the relationship between democratization
and environmentalism in Korea, see Ku, "The Korean Environmental Movement."

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6oa DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

In the end, industrialization "brought a

tional environmental landscape" that c
modern environmental consciousness and discourse."73 Nature conservation
became part of the nation's policies in 1978, and air and water quality standards
were enacted that same year. In 1980 a clause in the Korean constitution
"guaranteed people the right to live in a clean, healthy environment."74 The
environmentalism that developed in South Korea was neither an intended nor
anticipated product of American policies in the region, but industrialization was,
just as it was a Soviet goal in the North.75
Likewise, the nature sanctuary that evolved in the DMZ could not have
been foreseen in 1953, when the line was "temporarily" drawn across the
peninsula. However, this unintended consequence may prove to be the basis
for the final end to the Cold War in Korea. In 1998, Ke Chung Kim founded
the DMZ Forum, an international, nonprofit organization committed to
transforming the DMZ from a symbol of war and continued strife "into a
World Peace Park for Humanity, Research, and Biodiversity." This idea is
based on the belief that the narrow strip of land offers the greatest potential
for Korean reconciliation and reunion.76 According to Kim and the DMZ
Forum, the DMZ represents "a laboratory for advancing scientific understand
ing of natural processes and for educating the world" and that species "in the
DMZ could successfully re-establish those that have been eliminated in both
North and South in the rush to improve living standards." Furthermore,
by "building a Peace Park together, the two Koreas can rebuild common
traditions and consider a common future. Scientific exploration, sustainable
development and eco-tourism could profitably replace costly and dangerous
military confrontation."77 Arthur Westing, a long-time scholar of war's effects

73- Cho, "Emergence and Evolution of Environmental Discourses in South Korea," 144.
Cho's article is one of several that Korea Journal included in its autumn issue (vol. 44, no. 3,
2004), which was in part dedicated to studies of the development of environmentalism in South
Korea. See Cho, "Emergence and Evolution of Environmental Discourses in South Korea,"
138-64; Lee, "Environmental Awareness and Environmental Practice in Korea," 165-84; Ku,
"The Korean Environmental Movement"; and Moon Tae Hoon, "Environmental Policy and
Green Government in Korea," 220-51. Ku Do-Wan generally agreed with the trajectory of
environmentalism in Korea described by Cho, but suggested that it can be better explained
through the process of democratization, rather than through simple deterioration of the natural
environment, as Cho suggested. Cheong Wa Dae agreed with this interpretation, noting that
in the 1980s the South Korean government initiated numerous laws protecting the environ
ment. See Cheong Wa Dae, "Environment: Overview," and Lie, Han Unbound, 163.
74. Harashima, "Effects of Economic Growth on Environmental Policies," 32.
75. Just as in the United States and Europe, the rise of an environmental movement in
South Korea was a direct response to local problems and the consequences of development.
Although environmentalists in South Korea were certainly aware of a growing environmental
ethos and movement elsewhere, it was not until the 1990s that many such organizations turned
from local, anti-pollution platforms to broader-based, "global" issues. See Ku, "The Korean
Environmental Movement." See also Moon and Lim, "Weaving through Paradoxes."
76. DMZ Forum, 2002 Newsletter; available from http://www.dmzforum.org/news_
events/2002_o6.php (accessed 30 March 2007).
77. Ibid.

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 Life in the DMZ : 605

on the environment, agreed. Interviewed for a report in Technology Review,

Westing stated, "The environment is a benign, seemingly apolitical issue on
which the Koreans could possibly agree."78

new ground: the dmz as potential peace park

After decades of intermittent hostilities,

in the DMZ from 1966 to 1969, the ribbon
physical barrier and as a symbol of separati
potential for unity and peace.79 The great
coming the long-lasting effects of the Co
Korean Peninsula. As Bruce Cumings has s
divisions that we associate with the Cold War were the reasons for Korea's
division; they came early to Korea, before the onset of the global Cold War, and
today they outlast the end of the Cold War everywhere else."80 The DMZ is a
symbol of the "tragedy of war" and is "a sacred resting place for millions of
innocent [civilian] compatriots, foreign friends, and soldiers of both sides who
died for freedom and peace."81 It also has become a place that represents the
potential for "reconciliation and concordance" and that could serve "as a
gateway to unification and peace." The DMZ's "rich biodiversity and landscapes
opens a unique opportunity" for "sustainable development and peace" across the
npninsnla

Where the global ideological conflict ushered in dev

pollution, and death across much of the Land of th
vided a real calm in the DMZ that allowed life to prolif
DMZ cannot be overstated—without the devastation o
the division of the peninsula, important elements of
may well have been lost forever. Whereas the bro
to be fully analyzed by environmental historians, th
despite its negative impact on the natural world thro

78. Drohan, "Sustainably Developing the DMZ." For mo

"Maintaining No Man's Land"; O'Neill, "Korea's Dangerous
Environmental Treasures Need Protection," International Custom
79. For a brief history of the DMZ shadow war, see William R
Conflict," Military History 16 (October 1999): 38-44. There ha
armed engagements, large and small, along and in the DMZ sinc
always the threat, although it is much escalated now with N
nuclear weapons.
80. Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun, 186.
81. DMZ Forum, "The DMZ: Description and History."
www.dmzforum.org. Don Oberdorfer lists the following as the es
900,000 Chinese, 520,000 North Korean, 400,000 United Nation
and wounded, and 36,000 U.S. deaths. This accounts only for
casualties are notoriously difficult to ascertain, but the estimates
sides, killed, wounded, or missing. An additional five million bec
Two Koreas, 9-10.
82. DMZ Forum, "Description and History."

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6o6 : DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

ideologically infused development, some positive enviro

have resulted as well. Like the accidental wildlife sanctuary
Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal near Denver, Colorado—a cr
the United States' Cold War activities—remained free of commercial or
private development and became a de facto (and since 2005, an officially rec
ognized) wildlife reserve. Similarly, the U.S. Navy ordnance testing ground at
Vieques, Puerto Rico also escaped development during the Cold War and now
enjoys national wildlife refuge designation. In contrast, the DMZ's official
status is still in question. Paradoxically, continued tensions and potential rec
onciliation between the two Koreas means that the DMZ's future hangs in
the balance.
In light of this question, North and South Korean politicians, activists, and
scientists, as well as researchers from neighboring nations and across the globe,
have begun turning their attention toward the DMZ. Kim Kwi-gon, a professor
at Seoul National University, characterized the area as "a global treasure house
of ecosystems. That treasure house is in danger, however. 5 One clear indi
cation of this is the status of the migratory stopover sites for white-naped cranes.
A research team based in Japan published a study in Conservation Biology in 1996
that tracked the migratory paths of cranes between southeastern Russia, China,
and Japan between 1991 and 1993. The study echoed the findings of George
Archibald reported in the Audubon article (discussed above), concluding that for
the birds to survive, their stopover sites—many of which were in or around the
marshlands of the DMZ—must be preserved. The study discovered that the
"number of days cranes spent in or near the DMZ shows that habitat conser
vation of those sites is critical for crane migration."84 "Without proper conser
vation measures," the study reported, "stopover sites may become weak links in
the chain of migration and, if broken, will likely signal the end of the wild crane
populations that rely on them."85
The study's authors identified in 1993 a number of issues threatening the
sites, including the "Team Spirit" military exercises that South Korean and U.S.
armed forces had been conducting each spring since 1976.86 Furthermore, the
authors speculated that the "potential unification of [North Korea] and [South

83. Kwi-Gon Kim and Dong-Gil Cho, "Status and Ecological Resource Value of the
Republic of Korea's De-Militarized Zone," Landscape and Ecological Engineering 1 (2005): 3.
84. Hiroyoshi Higuchi et al., "Satellite Tracking of White-Naped Crane Migration and the
Importance of the Korean Demilitarized Zone," Conservation Biology 10 (June 1996): 809-10.
The natural marshlands in and near the DMZ and the agricultural areas in the CCZ served as
the primary habitat and feeding grounds for the migrating cranes.
85. Ibid., 806. Nine of the fifteen cranes tracked over a three-year period used the DMZ as
a long-term (more than ten days) stopover site each year, with five of them spending over half
their migration period in the DMZ.
86. Ibid., 810. The "Team Spirit" maneuvers were designed as defensive and "show-of
force" actions intended to deter North Korean aggressions across the DMZ. They were
conducted annually for eighteen years until they were suspended in hopes of encouraging
North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program and engage in talks. Although Team
Spirit continued to be scheduled through 1996, the last one was conducted in 1993.

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 Life in the DMZ : 607

Korea] will open the areas to swift development" and pointed to a Korean
Research Institute for Human Settlements plan that proposed increased "infra
structure, water resources, and economic growth in the 10 [South Korean]
counties that border the DMZ." At the time of publication, a road through the
Cholwon basin, one of the main migratory stopover sites, was already under
construction. The researchers indicated that the development's "impact on the
cranes has been unmitigated."87
The journal Ecological Economics published a study in 2003 that similarly
linked development to the decline of crane viability. The authors argued that
"willful industrial expansion" was at the root of the loss of winter habitat.88
They also suggested that although the cranes' habitat in the DMZ had provided
them some protection, it remained "very fragile." One reason was that "the
local farmers regard the cranes as a potential threat [to] their livelihood rather
than as an ecological member sharing the same ecosystem resources." Other
reasons included landholders' support for development and their legal claim to
property rights, the difficulty of imposing official policies for wildlife protection
(despite public support for such measures), and the lack of "organized public
commitment" to counter what the authors called "the persistent threat of
development."89
One solution they proposed identified several "non-market benefits" associ
J r\ A It T Tl.
aiLU vv Iuii uiiv- ui aiiuo aiiu an uiiuuvuiujjuu u/mu/. i iiu auuivii^ DD uiiciu

ecotourism may present the best possibility. This option

On one South Korean-ran tour to the DMZ, participants
tary inspection post to enter the civilian control zo
encounter a "farm and forestry landscape that is in sharp
environment where they live or have seen en route to th
upon seeing a peaceful pastoral valley of rice paddies an
amidst flowing streams and springs. Only the presence of
and some rains evidence the past wartime violence."90 A
n TT r 1 Û/1 rr n rl t-hi t- t-li ü (•niiripfp /~v n rvnrHnnlnr ft*ir\ tirûf û tn r* p 1-1 t j l n t-üfort-ü/1 m

seeing the old battlefields and war monuments—because they did indeed sign up
for the "Battle-Field Monument" tour—the serene, undeveloped landscape was
an unexpected bonus that added value to the journey. To maintain the level of

87. Ibid., 810. Construction on the road was not completed until 2003, after a decade of
heightened tensions. Both a highway and a railroad now exist at this point between the two
Koreas. Whereas South Koreans take advantage of them, few North Koreans go south on the
road. See Tom O'Neill, "Due North: A Brief Visit above the DMZ," National Geographic (July
2003): 22, and James Brooke, "Crossing the Line to Korean Détente," International Herald
Tribune, 24 October 2005; available from http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/24/news/
dmz.php (accessed 4 May 2007).
88. Kun H. John, Yeo C. Youn, and Joon H. Shin, "Resolving Conflicting Ecolocial and
Economic Interest in the Korean DMZ: A Valuation Based Approach," Ecological Economics 46
(August 2003): 174.
89. Ibid., 174.
90. Ibid., 175.

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6o8 : DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

.. :i
w

, J^lkV/liW

Figure 4: Keepsake key chain commemorating a DMZ visit. The image depicts a deer a
crane among leafy foliage. South Korean entrepreneurs are cashing in on the DMZ's nat
reputation—and its potential. Key chain in possession of author (who could resist?). Photo
author.

satisfaction for these tourists, the authors contended, the landscape must rem
in its present, undeveloped state91 (see Figure 4).
Tens of thousands visit the DMZ each year. Many go to honor Korean Wa
dead; others go out of curiosity to witness the last vestige of the Cold War.
April 1996, the New York Times reported that despite official South Korea
warnings of the "extremely dangerous" conditions at the DMZ due to recen
incursions by North Korean soldiers, "busloads of tourists" continued to trav
to Panmunjom to visit the armistice site.92 Since then, a variety of tours has be
developed, highlighting other points of interest in the DMZ and its surround
areas. Just north of the divide, the North Korean government partnered wi
Hyundai Corporation, a South Korean conglomerate, to offer a three-d

91. Ibid., 175. In 2004 the National Tourism Organization in South Korea proposed a
ecotourism center in Cholwon, an area renowned for its bird life. Development associated w
such a tourist destination has already begun. See Onishi, "Does a Tiger Lurk."
92. Andrew Pollack, "At the DMZ, Another Invasion: Tourists," Alew York Times (late e
10 April 1996, A10. See also Colin Woodard, "DMZ Holiday," Bulletin of the Atomic Scienti
54 (May-June 1998): 12-14, and Chester Dawson, "Popping up to the DMZ," Business We
27 October 2003, 136.

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 Life in the DMZ : 609

nature-based tour of Mount Kumgang.93 South Koreans access the sacred

mountain by means of a highway completed in 2003—the same road that the
authors of the Conservation Biology article deemed harmful to the cranes.
Although the effect on the cranes and other wildlife has yet to be adequately
studied, development is moving apace along the northern border of the DMZ. In
addition to the Mount Kumgang trips, which serve approximately a thousand
South Korean tourists each day, Hyundai is adding golf courses, hotels, and other
tourist amenities to the surrounding North Korean landscape.94 According to an
article in the International Herald Tribune, the Mount Kumgang area "is rapidly
becoming a South Korean tourist playground." The Hyundai Corporation is also
involved in another development—an industrial park in Gaesong, North Korea,
that will cover 65 square kilometers within sight of the DMZ.95 These plans are
part of South Korea's attempt to build North Korea's economy as well as its own.
The International Herald Tribune quoted Alan Timblick, the British director of
Invest Korea, as stating, "The only way we can solve this North-South issue is by
allowing the North to get on with their economic reforms."96
With the end of the Cold War and the opening (gradually) of China's
economy, economic reforms in North Korea are increasingly based on a capi
talist model, as the Hyundai resort and industrial developments indicate.
Although this might prove beneficial to the people of North Korea, if South
T^r*r^»o'c hicf-r»tnr ic oni7 rronrrp if- un 11 h*. 1é»cc rxtwin A pnti o 1 fnr Mr»rf4i T^r*r^o'c

already distressed environment and certainly so for the DMZ if no preventive

measures are taken. According to one observer, the development around the
DMZ "is taking place with no support from comprehensive and systematic
surveys and analyses of the ecological resources of the DMZ and their functions
and values."97 It is in this light that Ke Chung Kim's proposal for a Korean Peace
Bioreserves System takes on increased importance.
The DMZ's undeveloped state makes it, according to the DMZ Forum, "the
linchpin of pan-Korean nature conservation." If preserved, it "will provide the
foundation for sustainable development, cultural and spiritual advancement and
environmental security."98 The DMZ occasionally regains worldwide attention
as new issues (such as North Korea's nuclear program) arise and old tensions
resurface, but it has also caught international interest in recent years because of
the potential reconciliation between North and South. At the center lies the
DMZ and its ecological promise. If "consecrated as a peace park," as-Ke Chung
Kim, the DMZ Forum, and the United Nations Environment Programme hope

93- O'Neill, "Due North." O'Neill suggested that North Korea developed this ironic
partnership in order to attract much-needed foreign currency.
94. Brooke, "Crossing the Line."
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid. Invest Korea is a South Korean government agency designed to promote foreign
investment in the nation.
97. Kwi-Gon Kim and Cho, "Status and Resource Value," 4.
98. DMZ Forum, "Description and History."

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6lO : DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

it will be, "it will serve as exactly the right symbol of the
brought the two Koreas back together."99
The official line in South Korea is that, although "the ma
that once characterized the Land of the Morning Calm par
in the waves of industrialization, proactive government m
environmental consciousness promise a bright future for t
The Cheong Wa Dae (Office of the President) recognize
national cooperation, noting that most "environmental issu
in scope and domestic efforts alone will not be sufficient
environmental challenges."01 It also stated that cooperatio
was "high on [the] agenda. Recognizing the importanc
cooperation in maintaining healthy peninsular ecosystem
bution it can make to the unification process, Korea is pois
environmental preservation projects." In late 2005, South
official studies on the DMZ "to devise an ecological blue p
country as well as to preserve [the] DMZ's flourishing ecosy
plans for "laying the groundwork for the designation of
boundary biological preservation area in conjunction with
Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESC
Preserving the DMZ as an internationally recognized an
tor peace and conservation would indeed be a fitting tribu
and its people suffered as a result of the ideological compe
the Cold War. It would signify, better perhaps than any o
environments can promote healthy human relationships,
vidual level but at the national and international level as w
peace park in Korea would illustrate the importance of env
diplomatic negotiations and serve as an example of what ca
issues other than economic and political gain are considered
the diplomatic equation.
For Koreans themselves, however, preserving the DMZ
personal meaning. Where the DMZ long has been synonym
devastation, in recent years it has been transformed into a

99- Ke Chung Kim and Wilson, "The Land that War Protected."
too. Cheong Wa Dae (Office of the President), "Environment: Ov
rot. This position is supported by Kurkpatrick Dorsey's conclusion
of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treatie
(Seattle, 1998), 239.
102. Cheong Wa Dae, "Environment: Policy Framework—Inter
http://english.president.go.kr/cwd/en/korea/Korea_03_5_b.html
accessed 18 November 2005 and 16 January 2007). Page no longer a
collection (see note 25).
103. Cheong Wa Dae, "Environment: Natural Environment—H
sis"; http://english.president.go.kr/cwd/en/korea/Korea_o3_5_c.html
accessed 18 November 2005 and 19 January 2007). Page no longer a
collection (see note 25).

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 Life in the DMZ : 611

hope for peace on the Korean Peninsula. In September 2004 the New York Times
ran a story about Lim Sun Man, a documentary filmmaker, who is convinced
that he found evidence of a tiger or two living in the DMZ. He has yet to see
more than tiger-like footprints, but he is ever hopeful. Lim told the Ti?nes, "I am
searching not only for the tiger, but the spirit and soul of Korea. Because the
DMZ is not polluted—it's preserved—the Korean spirit is still alive there."1"4
Preservation of the DMZ thus takes on even more profound meaning.

I04- Onishi, "Does a Tiger Lurk." In 2006, the NASA Earth Observatory published a
satellite image of the DMZ on its website. The article associated with the image indicated that
although the official line still lists the Siberian tiger as extinct on the Korean Peninsula, "some
wildlife watchers have found pug marks in the snow and trees scratched in a manner much like
tigers marking territory. Local farmers have reported finding animals mauled by a large
predator. . . . The current unconfirmed estimate puts the southern population of tigers at
perhaps ten animals." NASA Earth Observatory, "Korean Demilitarized Zone"; available from
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3 ?img_id=i 5362
(accessed 7 July 2006 and 16 January 2007).

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