Shown in this undated photo provided by the Seoul metropolitan government shows an eco-friendly bridge that connects two green areas in southwestern Seoul.
SEOUL, Oct. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — Ecological corridors have been set up to connect wild habitat severed by humans, but a lack of maintenance is preventing the corridors from working properly.
The National Institute of Ecology (NIE) said there are currently 53 official ecological corridors set up by the Natural Environment Conservation Act (NECA), and an additional 487 corridors set up by other legislations on environmental impact assessment.
The government is directly responsible for the NECA ecological corridors, as stipulated by the legislation, that are relatively well maintained.
In contrast, ecological corridors that have been delegated to local public agencies or road management agencies aren’t even being properly monitored.
Rep. Park Dae-soo of the People Power Party referred to a Ministry of Environment report indicating that 13 of 53 NECA corridors lacked management registers, and three had registers that were poorly kept.
An ecological corridor in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, in particular, witnessed 28 roadkills within a 1-kilometer radius between 2019 and 2022. The corridor had no management register in place.
When the NIE assessed the efficiency of 49 NECA corridors in 2019, only 20 percent of them managed a ‘pass’.
Experts point out that the failure of an ecological corridor will result in animals crossing roads in search of food or habitat.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
