Relatively untouched DMZ is home to a number of natural wonders

[unhappycamper]

Birds take flight over the Imjin River in Korea's Demilitarized Zone, which has become a nature preserve of sorts thanks to the fact that it has been left relatively untouched by man for several decades.


Relatively untouched DMZ is home to a number of natural wonders
By Jon Rabiroff, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, October 13, 2009

DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Korea — The water deer nibbled away on the vegetation on the gently sloping bend along the Imjin River, seemingly unaware of the dozen people pointing and staring at it through a field scope from the opposite shoreline.

Nearby, the group observed a family of white-naped cranes feeding, something the endangered species does when wintering in the relative solitude of the Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea.

While mention of the DMZ conjures images of stone-faced soldiers, barbed-wire fences, guns and guard towers, the area between North and South Korea has remained virtually untouched by humans for more than 55 years.

As a result, the DMZ has essentially become a 2.5-mile-wide, 155-mile-long nature park that is home to more than 50 species of mammals, roughly 200 kinds of birds and in excess of 1,000 plant species. Some of the birds and animals that live or visit here are threatened or endangered.

Now a movement is under way to protect the natural wonders of the DMZ from perhaps their greatest threat — peace and the reunification of the peninsula.


Rest of article at; http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66049