5 December 2011. The area of salt marsh, tidal creeks, small islets and open tidal flat stretches from Incheon International Airport to Ganghwa Island in the north of South Korea. The area will be flooded and used as a tidal reservoir if the project goes ahead.
The area threatened by the Incheon Bay Tidal Power Plant is supposedly part-protected under domestic legislation. It supports several internationally important species including the world’s largest breeding concentration of the globally endangered Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor).
It also supports the livelihoods of a large number of people, both directly and indirectly, and should be maintained in its present state and instead, designated as a protected wetland Ramsar site, says Birds Korea director, Niall Moores.
Public Input Until 12th December
A public opportunity to comment on the proposal is available on the website of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), until 12th December 2011.
This is part of the process of the Incheon Tidal Power Station’s application for carbon credits to the UNFCC, that would then be sold on the international market. The power plant would not be economically feasible without the link to carbon credits.
Concerns about the impact of the proposal from international conservation and environmental experts are hoped to reduce support for the project and for similar proposals threatening other estuaries around the world, said Mr Moores.
Development Not Sustainable
“Birds Korea believes this project is very poorly advised,” says Mr Moores. “The project requires the construction of massive seawalls, 20.9 km long, to create a vast reservoir fed by incoming high tides.”
He said there was little or no domestic support for the project that would negatively impact biodiversity, including globally threatened species, and would lead to the loss of a very substantial area of natural habitats, permanently alternately flooding and drying out the tidal flats.
Although the project was touted as part of sustainable development in the region, the reality is that it would do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Natural carbon sequestration would possibly be reduced even while GHGs increased, as natural salt marshes and tidal flats are fantastic sinks for greenhouse gases, but could release much CO2 and methane when degraded, he said.
Decades of Large-scale Reclamation
The project should not be validated as part of Korea’s Clean Development Mechanism by being allowed to sell carbon credits, said Mr Moores. It did not meet the definition of sustainable development, nor targets set out by the Milennium Development Goals.
It also did not meet conservation obligations or targets under Ramsar, nor the CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2010-2020.
The massive tidal power plant proposal follows decades of large-scale reclamation mostly for agriculture, threatening the Republic of Korea’s remaining tidal-flat areas.
Birds Korea estimates that the area of remaining intertidal wetland in the ROK is now only about 110,000ha - less than a quarter of the historical area with about two-thirds of this loss occurring in only the past 25 years.
Habitat Loss Affects Shorebird Populations
This has had implications for the steep decline in East Asia’s shorebird populations.
The area proposed for the Incheon Power Plant not only supports the globally threatened Black-faced Spoonbill, but also is used by internationally important concentrations of vulnerable Far Eastern Curlew, (Numenius madagascariensis) during migration, and by over-wintering populations of the endangered Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis).
The project provided a rare opportunity to see the way in which genuinely held environmental concerns could be dismissed by developers. Despite developments and this latest proposal, the Republic of Korea is host nation both for the Living Ocean World Expo and the IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2012.
