At about 2 p.m. yesterday, a group numbering about 500 people was marching
from Seoul Station to Myeongdong Cathedral. At the head of the group were Father
Moon Gyu-hyeon, pastor of the Buan Roman Catholic Church, Venerable Sugyeong,
the chief monk at Silsang Buddhist Temple in Namwon, Reverend Lee Hee-woon, a
Protestant minister at Nasil Church in Jeonju and Kim Gyeong-il, a Won Buddhism
leader from Iksan. The North Jeolla province ecumenical delegation represents
the four largest organized religious groups in Korea.
Their march is somewhat strange at first glance. “Three steps and a bow,”
they call it, and that describes their actions accurately. Each step, they say,
symbolizes greed, anger and foolishness, the three major sins according to
Buddhist tenets. The bow is a sign of apology to the earth.
Only Father Moon and Venerable Sugyeong were there when the march began in a
west coast seaside village 310 kilometers (193 miles) south of Seoul. Reverend
Lee and Mr. Kim joined the march soon after it began and the number of followers
of all faiths has been increasing. For 63 days they have marched, bowing once
every three steps. They walk during the day and sleep in a tent at night. Knees
and palms swollen from bowing, Venerable Sugyeong was hospitalized for
exhaustion as the march neared Seoul, but rejoined it when he was released from
the hospital.
What drives these seemingly ascetic religious leaders and followers? It is
not a religious cause, but a concern for ecology.
The march began two months ago in Saemangeum, a 40,000-hectare wetland in
North Jeolla province. They are protesting a government reclamation project
currently under way there.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the North Jeolla government
initiated the project in 1991, saying that the tidal region would be converted
into farm land and a reservoir enclosed by a 33-kilometer sea dike. There are
also nascent plans to build an industrial complex there as well. It has been
called “the biggest land expansion project in Korean history.” It is one of the
biggest reclamation projects in the world. According to the ministry, the
project would take more than 20 years and cost at least 3 trillion won ($2.5
billion). The construction of the dike is 70 percent complete.
The ministry cites a litany of benefits from the project; it will “expand the
nation’s land, increase crop production, supply agricultural and industrial
water, make the region a tourist attraction and create jobs,” it says. It also
calls the project a sparkplug for the economic development of North Jeolla
province, a region which residents complain had been left behind in Korea’s
pell-mell rush to industrialize.
“Farmland there should be expanded to make Korea self-sufficient in rice. The
11,800-hectare reservoir we will build there, furthermore, will contribute to
the supply of water,” said an official at the Korea Agricultural and Rural
Infrastructure Corporation, the organization which is in charge of the
development of Saemangeum.
The marchers, other environmentalists and many academics, however, oppose the
plan because of the environmental damage it will cause. They have their own
litany ¯ of complaints, not benefits.
They say tidelands are home to the world’s most diverse forms of life, and
play vital roles in purifying seawater and controlling storms and floods. The
reclamation project, which will destroy the tidal ecology, will also lead to
unforeseen problems, they contend.
Marine life near the tidelands will also be ravaged, critics say.
Indeed, according to a statistics by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and
Fisheries, the types of fish and clams in the tideland area and the nearby sea
have decreased by at least 30 percent since the start of the construction of the
sea dike.
The ministry also expects the seasonal birds that now visit the tideland will
go elsewhere in droves.
Third, the marchers and others worry about the quality of the water that will
be held in the Saemangeum reservoir.
The agricultural ministry says it will use every measure available to ensure
that the water is clean, but environmentalists are skeptical. They point to the
Sihwa reservoir, a part of another reclamation project in Gyeonggi province. The
water there is polluted and aquatic life has dropped dramatically since the
project was completed in 1994.
“If the plan is carried out, the whole ecosystem in the tideland will
disappear. The development project should not be approached from the perspective
of economics or politics only. We don’t know what we will lose from this vast
natural site,” said Lee Chang-bok, a professor of oceanography at Seoul National
University.
Whether the development will bring economic gains or not is also in dispute.
The agriculture ministry says farmland is more valuable than the tideland;
the price of a parcel of farmland is 10 times that of a parcel of tideland in
the Korean market. The Korean Federation of Environmental Movements, however,
argues that tideland is perhaps 100 times more valuable than a rice paddy,
citing academic studies by Nature, a British science journal.
Area residents are divided over the issue as well. While many in North Jeolla
welcome the project, those who live near Saemangeum say the project threatens
their longstanding livelihoods.
Lee Yeong-ho, a fisherman on the tiny Naecheo island in Gunsan county, said,
“I have lived here digging shellfish. After the project was launched, shellfish
began to disappear. I don’t think I can live anymore by fishing.” He said the
project already has brought significant changes in the ecosystem of the North
Jeolla coastal lines.
“Have those who initiated the project ever thought about the lives of the
people the project will directly affect?” asked Shin Hyeong-rok, 38, a farmer in
Buan county. Mr. Shin was upset that the tideland that has been his playground
since his youth will disappear. “I ask those senseless people, who do not
understand the greatness of nature and attempt to destroy it, to come here and
see this vast sea and the tideland where nature is alive,” he said.
But the voices demanding that the project be completed are strong as well.
Kang Hyon-wook, the governor of North Jeolla and a former minister of
environment, said Monday that the Saemangeum reclamation project was crucial for
the economic development of the area. “We will never accept some civic group’s
demand to stop the development,” he said.
More than 10,000 people held a rally in front of the Gunsan, North Jeolla,
train station last Friday and urged the continuation of the project. “If we stop
the project now, we will incur a bigger disaster,” a statement issued by the
group said.
North Jeolla provincial council members are pressing the environment ministry
to continue the work, and many area residents plan to go to Seoul to counter the
three-step, one-bow march.
The protesters will march to Jongno today. Tomorrow, the day of the final
leg, the procession will arrive at Gwanghwamun and City Hall.
Coincidentally, they will be only one of at least four recreational, and
ceremonial protest gatherings expected in Seoul tomorrow. Although their numbers
are expected to swell with urbanites sympathetic to their cause, the opposition
is swelling as well.
“Those who live in other regions of Korea not understand the lagging state of
North Jeolla province. I do not want to leave the poverty of the region as a
legacy to my children,” said an anonymous poster on an Internet forum that has
been inundated with comments on the issue.
“We have believed that development and material prosperity are always good
things. We should not be arrogant any more about the death of life. We should be
sorry for the tideland,” said Venerable Wontaek, a Buddhist monk, as he joined
the three-step, one-bow march yesterday.