SOUTH KOREA

-- Sometimes,
political differences work out
in favour of environment.
Scientists and environmentalists are planning to transform a 248-km-long, four-
km-wide demilitarised zone
between communist North
Korea and capitalist South
Korea into a nature reserve.
The narrow strip running
roughly along the 38th parallel, undisturbed by humans
since the end of the 1950-53
Korean war, nestles wildlife
unrivalled in other preserves
in both Koreas.

The zone shelters half the
world's remaining black-
faced spoonbills. One-third
of the world's Manchurian
cranes feed in South Korea's
Churwon valley and fly to
this secluded zone to spend
their nights. It also serves as a
resting place for tiny sandpipers that stop and feed
themselves during their
6,000-km flight from Siberia
to Australia. Now conservationists are endeavouring to
preserve the area. An international conference is being
proposed to be held next year
to bring scientists from both
Koreas together to chalk out
a plan for conserving the
region.