The camouflage-clad South Korean army officer pointed beyond barbed wire to a trail where enemy agents had been spotted and shot. As he spoke of the firefight, a flock of red-crowned cranes glided down in the biting cold to land in what has been called the most dangerous place on earth.

In the 55 years since a cease-fire ended the war between North and South Korea, the 4 km-wide Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) has been sown with a million land mines. The world's most fortified border, bristling with tanks and artillery, has also become a haunt of the cranes, Asiatic black bears, black-faced spoonbills and 60 other endangered species.

As economic co-operation between the Koreas increases across the 248 km-long divide, environmentalists - including Cable News Network founder Ted Turner - want to ensure a future for the DMZ's wildlife. For South Koreans living nearby, concern about the birds is misplaced. They say they want any thaw in relations to attract development and jobs to the area.

“It's not easy to find a compromise,” said Hiroyoshi Higuchi, professor of biodiversity science at the University of Tokyo, who studied migratory cranes along the DMZ for nearly two decades. “The entire world is responsible for the preservation of nature at the DMZ, not just North and South Korea.”

Before the 1950-53 Korean War split the country, there were towns, villages and farms in the border region, and railroads connected northern and southern cities. After the cease-fire, the DMZ was formed as a buffer zone that now covers an area larger than New York City.

Vultures, Leopards

As people fled, wildlife moved into the zone's wetlands and forests of Mongolian oak, maple and Japanese red pine. Over the years, the South Korean government has reported sightings of the rare Amur goral mountain goat and the Amur leopard, the world's rarest subspecies of the wildcat. The zone is also home to the endangered black vulture, which takes care of the occasional carrion from animals blown up by the mines.

With the two Koreas still technically at war, the South set up a Civilian Control Zone in 1954 for military installations on the southern boundary of the DMZ. People need military permits to enter, and the government restricts land use and development in the area, which is as wide as 15 km in some places.

Dancing Cranes

Eighteen villages are located there, along with more than a thousand red-crowned and white-naped cranes that forage and dance in rice paddies. “It's the only place on earth where the two migrating cranes gather together,'' said Lee Sang Don, professor of environmental science and engineering at Ewha Woman's University in Seoul.
In mid-January, 10 local governments along the civilian zone met in Cheorwon county, 75 km north of Seoul, and agreed to ask that President Lee Myung Bak's new government ease the military controls and restrictions on property use. Lee took office on Feb 25.

“My parents-in-law are farmers in Cheorwon, and they feel birds are treated better than humans,” said Song Eun Jeong, a county official. “From land use to construction, people have to live under too many regulations.”

Others echo her view. “There is deep sentiment among the people that they had to endure disadvantages while the rest of the country prospered,” said Kim Dong Kgu, an official at the Cheorwon Environment and Water System.

A commission formed in Seoul last year to conserve the DMZ's ecosystem is attempting to find a compromise. The commission is “the first to bring together government agencies, officials from local provinces, scholars, activists and media,” said Kim Tae Sik, deputy director of the Nature Conservation Bureau of the Ministry of Environment.
He said a joint North-South survey of the DMZ's wildlife is needed, but there's no official channel between the two countries on the issue.

Meanwhile, the Kaesong Industrial Complex, several kilometres from the DMZ in North Korea, is expanding. Some 60 companies there employ more than 23,000 North Koreans in this symbol of economic cooperation between the North and South, raising concerns at Green Korea United about pollution.

“Kaesong businesses such as fibre, dying and leather-processing release large amounts of pollutants,” said Yoo So Young, coordinator at the South Korean environmental organisation.

Wildlife Sanctuary

During a 2005 speech in Seoul, Turner, 69, said the DMZ should be turned into a wildlife sanctuary. His Turner Foundation supports the protection of such habitats, and he “remains in favour of preserving the DMZ from development and designating the site as a Peace Park,” said Phillip Evans, chief communication officer for Turner Enterprises Inc.

Construction is already picking up along the southern edge of the civilian zone, said Choi Bo Soun, a 46-year-old real-estate agent in Cheorwon, pointing to the bright red “Land for Sale” sign he painted himself.

“Land prices around here soared 10-fold in 10 years,” he said. “Everybody thinks something is going to happen around the DMZ. I don't want to ruin nature. Maybe they could build a bridge over the DMZ to avoid disturbing the wildlife?”