Nordmann's Greenshank at the Geum. The Geum Estuary supported probably 10% of the world's population of this endangered shorebird in 2006. Image Richard Chandler.
Many Bar-tailed Godwits reach Korea after a single non-stop flight from New Zealand and Australia. They depend on Saemangeum and the Geum Estuary for refuelling before another marathon flight north to their Alaskan breeding grounds. Image Jan van de Kam.
An estimated 30% of the world's 380,000 Great Knot depended each year on Saemangeum and the Geum Estuary during migration. Image Jan van de Kam.
Surveys in the 1990s by government researchers in South Korea confirmed that the Saemangeum estuarine system was the single most important site for shorebirds in the whole country, supporting several hundred thousand shorebirds each year. This included 30% of the world's Great Knot and up to 200 of the Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper.
Based on these data, the Saemangeum estuarine system was identified as the single most important known site for shorebirds in the whole of the Yellow Sea, itself a vital link in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway for millions of shorebirds. Some of these birds migrate the whole length of the Flyway, from New Zealand and Australia in the south to Russia and Alaska in the north.
Despite Saemangeum's extreme international importance and South Korea's accession to the Ramsar Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity, government officials defend the reclamation, stating that the destruction of 40,100 ha of tidal-flats and sea-shallows will be achieved in an "eco-friendly" way. (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3594195.stm).
Reclamation proponents at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry go further still, asserting that the reclamation would actually "invite(s) more migratory birds to the area" while shorebirds will "easily move their habitat to the Gomso Bay, Geum River estuary or other tidal flat". (see: http://www.birdskorea.org/MAFrebuttal.asp).
In the absence of a transparent program to monitor the impacts on shorebirds and other biota of this, the world's largest coastal reclamation project, the South Korean conservation organisation Birds Korea partnered with the specialist Australasian Wader Studies Group to conduct the Saemangeum Shorebird Monitoring Program (SSMP).
The SSMP entails intensive survey through April and May 2006-2008 of northward shorebird migration at Saemangeum, and the adjacent Gomso Bay and Geum Estuary.
During northward migration in 2006, the SSMP was able to confirm the extreme importance of Saemangeum and the neighbouring Geum Estuary for shorebirds as well as record a mass die-off of shellfish immediately after natural tidal-range was lost following seawall closure on April 21st 2006.
With the natural tidal range reduced from a 7 metre at peak to less than 1 metre, probably 95% of Saemangeum's tidal-flats had either been drowned or had become desert-like by April 2007. Great Knot had declined by 96% at Saemangeum compared to the same period in 2006, and along with other shorebirds they did not simply move to adjacent sites. The total number of shorebirds supported by Saemangeum, the Geum Estuary and Gomso Bay in Mid-May 2007 was 127,717 - down almost half from the total of 244,349 shorebirds supported by the same area during the same period in 2006.
The SSMP will continue in April and May 2008. Results are freely available, and are being meshed in with other ongoing shorebird research initiatives. Combined, they will reveal the true impacts of the Saemangeum reclamation, at the local and the Flyway level: providing much of the science behind the conservation community's passion and concern.
For more information on the SSMP, go to: www.birdskorea.org/saemref.asp or www.tasweb.com.au/awsg.
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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