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The Ministry of Environment announced Friday (July 18) that it is conducting an ecosystem protection project on Dokdo, Korea's easternmost island group in order to preserve species diversity and build an efficient management system of the island.
According to research conducted by the ministry between 2005 and 2006, a wide variety of animals and plants are found on the island -- 107 kinds of birds, 49 kinds of plants and 93 kinds of insects.
Among them are birds that face extinction in Korea -- hawks, owls, black kites, hooded cranes, swans and ospreys.
In 2007, the ministry discovered 26 kinds of invertebrate animals such as lugworms that live on Dokdo.
New birds including kingfishers, butcherbirds and red-breasted mergansers are also found to habitat the island group according to the ministry's research during the first half of this year.
As the ministry keeps discovering new kinds of inhabitants on the island, it decided to carry out ecosystem monitoring on Dokdo up to four times annually, unlike other islands where it conducts such monitoring only once every year. It also decided to conduct in-depth research on the four seasons on the island every five years in order to analyze any changes in the ecosystem and observe effects of newly entered species on the ecosystem.
By Yoon Sojung
Korea.net Staff writer |