Sanctuary: for nature and the dead; Preserving the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

• Author: Shore, William B.

The Cold War briefly grew hot between 1950 and 1953, when the center of the Korean peninsula was devastated by savage conflict. An invading North Korea, backed by Communist Russia and China, was resisted by South Korea, supported by the United Nations with mainly U.S. troops. The war was halted by a truce--there is still no peace treaty--and a no-man's land was created to keep the enemy troops apart. That heavily mined and closely watched strip of land is the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). For 51 years, humans have been kept out of most of it.

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Korea's DMZ is the sacred resting place of soldiers and other war victims. Korean people have paid dearly and the DMZ memorializes that tragedy. Preserving the DMZ as a special place is therefore spiritually important.

Moreover, it is equally important environmentally. Excluding humans from the DMZ has allowed an unexpected and extraordinary experiment with nature to unfold. In this four-kilometer-wide corridor, stretching 250 kilometers across the peninsula, wild habitats have luxuriantly rebounded from war's destruction. The fallow land on the western section has reverted to thick prairie and shrubs. Rich green forests adorn the eastern mountain ranges. Endangered and rare plant and animal species have found homes there. Wildlife is plentiful; people have seen Asian black bears, leopards, musk deer, Amur goral (a kind of goat-antelope), and spotted seals. Some think there are Siberian tigers. According to George Archibald of the International Crane Foundation, rare cranes have returned to the DMZ; perhaps half of the world's 2,000 red-crowned cranes, as well as almost-as-rare white-naped cranes, spend time in the DMZ. Of the 1,000 black-faced spoonbills in the world, 90 percent breed in the DMZ. Crested ibis once lived there and can be re-introduced from China, where the flock has grown to several hundred. About 1,000 black vultures, and probably some Tristram's woodpeckers, also live in the DMZ. The white stork, which has died out in Japan, survives in Korea.

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Protection of these migratory birds affects more countries than the Koreas. One expert recently wrote that "with the possibility of reunification between the Koreas, the DMZ may be the most important conservation issue throughout Asia. The potential loss of critical habitat to many endangered species that have become dependent on this habitat poses a great threat."

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