An Avian Oasis Created by War

Hall Healy



Today, the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and adjoining Civilian Control Zone (CCZ), both created by the 1953 ceasefire to the Korean War, are a biodiverse oasis providing an important resting area for cranes and other birds during migrations as well as longer-term habitat. Satellite telemetry shows that during the white-naped cranes’ long passage from wintering grounds in southern Japan to breeding grounds in northern China and southeastern Russia, the DMZ is their major resting area. And from October through March, the DMZ is a winter home for red-crowned cranes and different populations of white-naped cranes. About one-third of the world’s endangered 2,800 red-crowned and half of the remaining 5000 white-naped cranes depend on the wetlands and agricultural fields in and near the DMZ. Most important are the Han River estuary in the west and the Cheorwon Basin in the central highlands.

The DMZ is four by 250 km and the contiguous CCZ is five to twenty km wide across the peninsula. Together they form a vital link between ecosystems throughout Northeast Asia. Hundreds of bird species migrate through the DMZ, traveling to and from Mongolia, China, Russia, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines and Australia — from the top to the bottom of the world!

Hall Healy is chairman of the board of the International Crane Foundation and member of IUCN’s Task Force of Transboundary Protected Areas Committee and Specialist Group on Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills.

See also KJ 53 article “Healing a Divided Land,” an interview with DMZ Forum scientist Ke Chung Kim (pp. 24-26).

return to Biodiversity contents