Human beings have destroyed the only earth against Mother Nature under the banner of development and industrialization since the dawn of history. The recent move of so-called restoration is not so different from the idea where human put themselves first before nature because people try to nuture the nature for the sake of themselves.
And the lives in nature rather stay further away from human beings than restore the connection with them, despite some-what late and resistant efforts to have natural environment back to their lives.
Now even children, who are supposed to face to face with nature more often than anyone, have no choice but to find animals and plants in a picture and book.
However, here in Korea Ahn Kyung Soo, president of Incheon University, is trying to change such a people-friendly style project for nature restoration to nature-friendly one by committing himself to conserve the wetlands and reset the nature as it used to be and by spending out his own wealth and making the most of his human networking.
He said in an interview with AJnews, "People should start seeing the natural environment not from their perspective but from nature point of view."
As a well-known Korean wetland guard, the president Ahn has been committed to recovering a few left-out swamps in Korea ever since 1998. He is one of leaders in Korea working hard to keep the wetlands as it is not by artificial method but by natural way.
President Ahn in fact has headed up Korean Wetland Society (KWS) for the past 5 years and held a number of seminars and conferences since 1998 where he was able to turn himself an amateur majoring in civil engineering to a real professional with more knowledge about wetlands.
His efforts finally paid off when Sorae’s Environment Creep Park was founded on the salt farm near Incheon harbor in June of 1999 with the help of director Kim Jin Taek in Incheon city hall.
The park was equipped only with learning field about the salt farm and barricade around foreshore at the beginning but the president Ahn suggested officials at Incheon authority to upgrade the park to the place where projects to conserve the wetlands are built Thanks to his persistent endeavor, the park could receive government funding by being designated as the 1st project for wetlands restoration by then Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.
However, his mission to build the world-class nature park has not been fully accomplished because the site had to be downsized by 80 percent from 3.5 million to 0.66 million square meters due to the irreconcilable disagreement with the owner of site.
“I was very disappointed at the fact that the park did not include Mt Jangha and Ohbong in between and I believe the dream of having one of the world’s most qualified nature parks in Korea has still a long way to go,” he said.
He added that chemical and artificial material should be banned from building the nature park because the concept of Nature Park is to restore and manage the nature as it is and help animals and plants co-exist with human beings.
“The power in the park should also be supplied by natural resources such as the sun, earth heat and wind in order to conform to the idea of restoring the nature back to its origin,” he explained.
According to President Ahn, the centre for national wetlands is soon to be established to monitor and manage the swamps in Korea more systematically including Sorae.
However, he said what is needed more than just the centre is Incheon people’s attention toward nature park, adding that citizens in Woopo and Sooncheon showed bigger enthusiasm about local nature park by opening its managing office despite less financial aid from the government.
Last but not the least, he showed some concerns over Incheon citizen’s objection to the conservation project for wetlands which the Ministry of Environment has assigned the local authority rights to manage.
“I hope the authority makes fine decision not based on the political popularity but based on the global principle set by Ramsar Convention that development process should be made only in the zone in urgent need for betterment of life quality," he said.
By Cho Yoon Sung
Translate and Edit by Shin Kirim
kirimi99@ajnews.co.kr
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