Surfbirds News

Algae are blooming in the dank puddles that remain and thick scum lines the estuary’s few creeks and channels. Vast stretches of shellfish beds, and thousands of plants, lie dead on the parched mud now covering most of the site. The tidal range of the 155-square mile wetland has dropped from seven metres to just 17 centimetres and all but 30 of the 400 boats that fished estuary waters have been grounded as a result.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper © Dave Farrow

Yet there are no firm plans to compensate for this wildlife and economic tragedy and conservationists are appealing to the UK government to help save what remains of the site.

The Saemangeum project was hatched to create paddy fields but there is insufficient clean water for irrigation. 'Now they are talking about building a golf course, a huge casino or even a Formula 1 race track,' says the RSPB’s Sarah Dawkins, who is currently working as a volunteer to help monitor the impact on birds of the seawall. 'It would be like putting a casino on The Wash.

'Estuaries should be fantastic places, full of the bustle of shorebirds feeding on shellfish and worms in the mud and sand. The wall has blocked the life-giving ebb and flow of the sea, boats are stranded waiting for a tide that will never come and the mudflats are strewn with mile upon mile of litter.

'Saemangeum really was the jewel in the crown yet all around me the place is dying.'

Nordmann's Greenshank © Garry Bakker

Saemangeum is the region’s most important refuelling post for around 400,000 migrating waders negotiating a 15,000-mile round trip between the southern hemisphere and south-east Asia, and breeding sites in Alaska and Russia. At the height of migration, over 150,000 waders from more than 25 species seek food at Saemangeum in a single day.

The spoon-billed sandpiper and Nordmann’s greenshank face extinction as their remaining populations rely on the tidal-flats of the Yellow Sea and on Saemangeum in particular. More than 100,000 great knot, a third of the world’s population, have been seen at Saemangeum in one day and these birds could be too poorly fed this year to survive their final flight north. Internationally important numbers of 26 other bird species used the estuary before it was drained.

Saemangeum has always been a haven for migratory birds and for birdwatchers but as World Migratory Birds Day is celebrated around the globe today (May 12), experts are monitoring the impact of the Saemangeum reclamation project on the anniversary of its completion.

The seawall took 15 years to build due of a succession of legal challenges from conservationists. The area was also the lifeblood of 25,000 people from fishing communities on the Yellow Sea coast.

A chink of light still glimmers, however, for the birds whose fate seems almost sealed. Sluice gates have been built into the Saemangeum sea-wall, which if kept open would save at least part of the wetland.

Birds Korea, a conservation group in South Korea, wants the UK government and the EU, together with governments elsewhere, to offer support to South Korean authorities in conserving and managing Saemangeum. The group is also urging people to write to the South Korean embassy in the UK calling for the sluice gates to be kept open.

Nial Moores, Director of Birds Korea, said: 'International appeals to the authorities here in South Korea would underline just how precious Saemangeum is. The Ministry of Agriculture claims that the Saemangeum birds will just move to neighbouring estuaries but the birds there are already fighting over food and at least one of these estuaries may also be reclaimed.'

Ms Park Meena, National Coordinator of Birds Korea, said: 'Saemangeum could be a huge lure for eco-tourists from all over the world if it was restored. The birds are still coming and parts of the site are still alive so there is a chance we can save it. If the sluice gates were opened the tides would return, restoring life to the mudflats and bringing food both to the birds and people with whom they co-exist.'

South Korea is a signatory to the inter-governmental Ramsar Convention, which is designed to conserve wetlands. The government did not designate Saemangeum as a specially protected Ramsar site, however. South Korea is hosting the triennial Ramsar conference of the parties from October 28 to November 4, 2008).

A government research body warned in 2006 that sea levels in parts of the Yellow Sea could rise by up to 30cm because of the reclamation project. This would cause other tidal land to flood.

Great Knot © Bas van den Boogaard

There are fewer than 1,000 spoon-billed sandpiper and Nordmann’s greenshank left. The fast-declining spoon-billed sandpiper (Eurynorhynchus pygmeus) is the rarest breeding bird in the Arctic region, breeding only in the Russian Far East. It is 14-16cm long with a reddish-brown head, neck and chest and a very distinctive bill, shaped like a spatula, which it uses for feeding in estuarine habitats. The bird depends on active, sea-washed estuaries on migration and in winter and loss of these tidal flats is its main threat, causing an extremely rapid decline in recent years. Numbers have declined by 80 per cent in the last 40 years.

The Nordmann’s, or spotted, greenshank (Tringa guttifer) is a little-known pigeon-sized wader, dependent on estuaries where it feeds mostly on crabs and tidal-flat worms. Breeding in forested wetlands in Sakhalin and coastal areas of the Russian Far East, it migrates through the Yellow Sea on migration to its wintering area in Malaysia and neighbouring countries. This enigmatic species is threatened by oil exploration, pollution and reclamation of tidal wetlands like Saemangeum.

More than 30 per cent of the world’s great knot (Calidris tenuirostris), a shorebird that eats small shellfish, depends on Saemangeum for food. Wintering in Australia, it reaches Saemangeum in a non-stop, 3,440-mile flight in spring.

The species breeds in eastern Siberia and is a very rare vagrant to western Europe.

A bar-tailed godwit recently set a new record for the longest, tracked, non-stop flight, migrating 6,341 miles, non-stop, from New Zealand to North Korea, at an average speed of 35mph and altitude of up to two kilometres. She would have lost about 300g - half her body weight - in the week-long journey before flying another 3,100 miles to breeding grounds in Alaska.

At least 29 species of waterbird have been regularly recorded at Saemangeum in internationally important numbers – one per cent of the world population or more than 20,000 birds.

The black-faced spoonbill (1,600 left), Saunders’s gull (7,000 remaining) and Chinese egret (2,500 left) are other endangered birds found in high numbers on Saemangeum. All three birds seek food on tidal flats.

First proposed by the military government of South Korea in the 1970s, building of the seawall started in 1991. As with all reclamations of public waters in Korea, the final primary end-use had to be agriculture. During 15 years of increasing controversy, the reclamation was suspended twice, during a government review in the late 1990s, and by the courts, from 2005 until early 2006. The High Court finally allowed reclamation to proceed, as long as water quality could be maintained to the level needed for agriculture. However, even the government now accepts that the huge reservoir to be created will be too polluted to use, so they are presently considering passing a special Saemangeum Law to allow the reclaimed land to be bought by a wide-range of private investors – allowing the construction of resorts and even casinos. It is the most well-known South Korean environmental issue both domestically and internationally. More information on the project is here: www.birdskorea.org