Dr Nial Moores, Director, & Ms Park Meena, Nationwide Coordinator, Birds Korea.
Primarily based on the type suggestion of an environmental research instructor, Birds Korea was requested by Hapcheon Pyeonghwa (Peace) Excessive College if we have been in a position to go to their faculty to current concerning the surroundings within the DPRK. We have been delighted to just accept the invitation.
On August 31st, each Ms Park Meena (Birds Korea Nationwide Coordinator) and myself (NM) went to the varsity in Hapcheon County, not removed from the Nakdong River. We have been each instantly impressed by the varsity, the employees and the scholars. Set amongst rice-fields towards a backdrop of forested hills, the varsity grounds comprise a number of buildings, a grass soccer subject, and gardens filled with flowers. Each academics and college students have been very welcoming.
Our presentation was delivered within the spacious library to 60 college students and maybe eight or so employees, together with the great Head Trainer Lee Mi-Gyeong.
We coated a number of inter-related themes, all aiming to reply the query – requested by Birds Korea members again in 2014 – of why we helped to conduct fowl surveys within the DPRK (North Korea) when folks there might need been ravenous. The presentation due to this fact launched the idea of fowl as bio-indicator; listed a few of the many advantages to folks supplied by birds as a part of functioning ecosystems; and explored the sustainability of assorted tasks towards the UN’s Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs). This included commentary on tidal flat reclamation, at Saemangeum and all through the Yellow Sea; and on conservation tasks within the DPRK, together with the ecosystems strategy taken at Mundok and ecotourism to Rason pre-COVID.
We have been each genuinely impressed by the scholars’ stage of curiosity and engagement, and by a few of the concepts that they got here up with. Individuals all too simply say cliches like “youngsters are the long run”. The reality is extra nuanced. Our planet is going through local weather and ecological breakdown largely due to the actions and lack of motion by these aged fifty and above. And unfairly, it will likely be largely as much as those that are actually of their teenagers and twenties to resolve these failures. Fortuitously, based mostly on these college students and their academics we met at this faculty, this youthful technology seems to be like it’s going to quickly be able to face the problem.
