By Bernard Rowan
South Korea is a beautiful country, and citizens take pride in the environment. Nevertheless, advancement compromises the health of Korea's bird species ― among others. The effects of the country's development and advancement miracle need new miracles. Or perhaps changed habits. South Korea now ranks high among polluting countries, even if much of the pollution amounts to dust. It's not all from China, and it's harming man and nature, including Korea's birds.
Have you ever seen or heard about the crested shelduck, spoon-billed sandpiper, Chinese crested tern, or yellow-breasted bunting? Look them up online. They're wonderful to see. Some are cute, others endearing oddities. These four appear on BirdLife International's list of critically endangered species on the South Korea country profile. Another 10 species have endangered status, 19 vulnerable, and 27 near threatened, out of 362 total species native to South Korea, representing over 16 percent in states of mild to severe threat.
I'm not sure, but when I visited Korea the first time, I bought some wooden images of the Mandarin duck. The duck symbolizes marriage and good luck as I recall. When I see images of the crested shelduck, I see some likenesses, but the birds are different. Could this bird suffer because it's not the brilliantly-colored beauty like the Mandarin Duck? Nowadays, it's not easy to see one, and some reports suggest they're all gone.
Where did they go? Most of the readings I consulted discuss loss of their places of living and the depredations of contact with humans. We selfishly took or ate them! They can't make it anymore. We haven't helped them by preserving their homes and places of breeding. Why? Avian management isn't a lost art.
This common thread runs through stories about the other three birds on the critical list. Spoon-billed sandpipers are cute birds found near coastal places and tundra. When natural and human destruction of environments takes away, erodes, and overgrows them with commercial and residential developments, the sandpipers lose their way. The Saemangeum seawall project may have brought benefits, maybe overriding benefits, but it also may be what finishes off the Sandpipers. We have to admit that humans sometimes destroy innocent life. Awful! Can't we recreate or anticipate the impact of this to avoid them? Korea's sandpipers have many cousins!
It's only slightly better for the Chinese Crested Tern. In 2017, BirdLife reported a breeding colony off the coast of South Korea near South Jeolla Province. It's not by chance. It isn't because of human intervention. Human development and excess form the thread in these stories.
On the other hand, it seems people like eating the Yellow-breasted Bunting, a wonderful songbird. I read this bird is "the ginseng of the sky" or "the rice bird." We've gobbled them all up. I prefer to call them the "songbird," and we need not eat them to death, since we're not usually doing that with other impresarios of opera, stage and digital CDs. Not unusually, deforestation and human takeover of habitats have done the dirty deed.
Let's steer the 21st century tide of anthro-avian relations in a different direction. These four and their cousins deserve help. Developments and industrial sites should clear environmental protocols or never happen. Governments and corporations must minimize damage to life contexts of avian beings. When we lose our stocks of these birds, we sacrifice long-term environmental health for short-term meat, pets, or whatever else drives us.
The Financial Times reported in 2017 that South Koreans must demand cleaner burning coal-plants and pay better attention to automobile emissions. Koreans need to carryover Lee Myung-bak's attention to green growth. President Moon has charted a course in this direction and deserves praise for the effort. A good world for man and bird is always the public interest. There's lot to do, and time runs short. Too many people live by ideology on environmental issues in the U.S. I hope the same won't be true in Korea. The birds need us. We need them more.
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.
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Have you ever seen or heard about the crested shelduck, spoon-billed sandpiper, Chinese crested tern, or yellow-breasted bunting? Look them up online. They're wonderful to see. Some are cute, others endearing oddities. These four appear on BirdLife International's list of critically endangered species on the South Korea country profile. Another 10 species have endangered status, 19 vulnerable, and 27 near threatened, out of 362 total species native to South Korea, representing over 16 percent in states of mild to severe threat.
I'm not sure, but when I visited Korea the first time, I bought some wooden images of the Mandarin duck. The duck symbolizes marriage and good luck as I recall. When I see images of the crested shelduck, I see some likenesses, but the birds are different. Could this bird suffer because it's not the brilliantly-colored beauty like the Mandarin Duck? Nowadays, it's not easy to see one, and some reports suggest they're all gone.
Where did they go? Most of the readings I consulted discuss loss of their places of living and the depredations of contact with humans. We selfishly took or ate them! They can't make it anymore. We haven't helped them by preserving their homes and places of breeding. Why? Avian management isn't a lost art.
This common thread runs through stories about the other three birds on the critical list. Spoon-billed sandpipers are cute birds found near coastal places and tundra. When natural and human destruction of environments takes away, erodes, and overgrows them with commercial and residential developments, the sandpipers lose their way. The Saemangeum seawall project may have brought benefits, maybe overriding benefits, but it also may be what finishes off the Sandpipers. We have to admit that humans sometimes destroy innocent life. Awful! Can't we recreate or anticipate the impact of this to avoid them? Korea's sandpipers have many cousins!
It's only slightly better for the Chinese Crested Tern. In 2017, BirdLife reported a breeding colony off the coast of South Korea near South Jeolla Province. It's not by chance. It isn't because of human intervention. Human development and excess form the thread in these stories.
On the other hand, it seems people like eating the Yellow-breasted Bunting, a wonderful songbird. I read this bird is "the ginseng of the sky" or "the rice bird." We've gobbled them all up. I prefer to call them the "songbird," and we need not eat them to death, since we're not usually doing that with other impresarios of opera, stage and digital CDs. Not unusually, deforestation and human takeover of habitats have done the dirty deed.
Let's steer the 21st century tide of anthro-avian relations in a different direction. These four and their cousins deserve help. Developments and industrial sites should clear environmental protocols or never happen. Governments and corporations must minimize damage to life contexts of avian beings. When we lose our stocks of these birds, we sacrifice long-term environmental health for short-term meat, pets, or whatever else drives us.
The Financial Times reported in 2017 that South Koreans must demand cleaner burning coal-plants and pay better attention to automobile emissions. Koreans need to carryover Lee Myung-bak's attention to green growth. President Moon has charted a course in this direction and deserves praise for the effort. A good world for man and bird is always the public interest. There's lot to do, and time runs short. Too many people live by ideology on environmental issues in the U.S. I hope the same won't be true in Korea. The birds need us. We need them more.
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.
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