South Korean Wetlands

Saemangeum, the once glorious estuary on the west coast of South Korea, is dying. Open the sea-gates now. Restore Saemangeum!

In April, 2006, dumper trucks poured their final loads of rubble and rock into the last remaining gap in a 33-km long dyke, and closed off 40,000 hectares of this vast estuary from the sea. With almost no tide, the shellfish beds – that had until that day supported the world’s largest concentration of Great Knot – started to die.

By April 2007, most of Saemangeum’s tidal-flats had either been flooded, or turned into desert – huge expanses of drying mud, littered with dead shells, plastic, and even fishing boats – all part of a massive “reclamation” project, with still no clear end-use.
Forty Thousand Hectares: Forty thousand emails – help to overturn this decision and Restore Saemangeum to it’s former glory