Spoon-billed Sandpipers. In the late 1990s, 200 Spoon-billed Sandpiper were reported at Saemangeum. In May 2007, only 31 remained - out of a world population estimated at only 1000 individuals. Image Trevor Feltham.
Saemangeum - vital to both birds and people. An estimated 25,000 people depended on Saemangeum's tidal-flats and sea-shallows for their livelihoods. Image Jan van de Kam.
During April and May 2006, Saemangeum supported over 198,000 migratory shorebirds. By April and May 2007, this number had fallen to less than 90,000.
The west coast of South Korea has some of the widest and most naturally productive tidal flats and estuaries in the world. They support specialised waterbirds like the Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Nordmann's Greenshank and Black-faced Spoonbill, hundreds of thousands of migrant shorebirds each year, and a once rich fishing industry.
In the past few decades, however, almost half of these tidal flats have been reclaimed - impounded, converted to land and reservoirs: "lost". The impacts on water quality and inshore fisheries appear dramatic; the impacts on shorebirds, largely unmeasured, have most likely been immense.
Saemangeum (pronounced Say-Man-Gum) is the name given to the largest and most destructive of these reclamation projects. It is massive on every scale, entailing the construction of the world's longest sea-dyke (33 kilometres) to dam two estuaries (the Mangyeung and the Dongjin) and 40,100 hectares of tidal-flats and sea-shallows that together comprised the single most important shorebird site not only in South Korea, but in the whole of the Yellow Sea.
The Saemangeum area has regularly supported at least 27 species of waterbird in Ramsar-defined internationally important concentrations. During northward migration in 2007, one year after sea-wall closure, it still supported over 88,000 shorebirds with 13 of these species in internationally important concentrations, including the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. With continuing deterioration, the site will be unable to support many shorebirds. With the sea-gates fully open, with improved tides and reduced water pollution, it will be able to retain some of its international importance.
Saemangeum was at the heart of what was once a 60 kilometre wide super-estuary system, fed by three rivers: the Mangyeung and Dongjin (Saemangeum), and the Geum. The Geum, although barraged and industrial along part of its shore, still opens up into one of Korea's most beautiful and bird-rich estuaries, with several thousand hectares of complex tidal-flats and shallows. Following the demise of Saemangeum, it has become South Korea's most important shorebird site. During northward migration in 2007, the Saemangeum Shorebird Monitoring Program recorded a minimum of 119,000 shorebirds in the Geum Estuary, with 13 of these species in internationally important concentrations.
This whole area had also been targeted for reclamation. However, in September 2006, South Korea's Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries announced their opposition to the reclamation, and local government also announced their opposition in May 2007. Through sending emails and letters we can show strong support for their bold decision.
Act Now to urge the formal protection of the Geum Estuary, and win its designation as a Ramsar site, in time for the October 2008 Ramsar Conference in South Korea.
restoresaemangeum.com. Working to restore Saemangeum and preserve shorebird habitat and diversity on the Yellow Sea. Contact us at info@restoresaemangeum.com
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