On 28 July 1953, representatives from several nations met at the tiny Korean farming village of Panmunjom and inadvertently created one of Asia’s most important nature sanctuaries. Establishing a wildlife preserve was never a goal of the armistice that ended the Korean War, of course, but it nevertheless is a significant consequence of those diplomatic negotiations. A wide variety of Korea’s native plants and animals, as well as numerous migratory species, were the direct beneficiaries. For some, like the red-crowned or Manchurian crane, the existence of the sanctuary has meant the difference between survival and extinction. 1

The accidental nature preserve coincides with the 2.5 mile wide, 155 mile long demilitarized zone (DMZ), which was set up as a buffer against future hostilities and to establish neutral ground where North and South Korea could work toward eventual reunification. Internal divisions within the two Koreas and continued distrust between them, combined with the Cold War agendas of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and the United States, ensured that the temporary divide took on a more permanent character. For decades, the DMZ has symbolized diplomatic failure, but from an environmental perspective, it is one of the Cold War’s greatest successes. The DMZ is a cross-section of the peninsula’s geography. Approximately 40 miles north of Seoul, its western terminus bisects the estuarine delta created by the confluence of the Han and Imjin rivers as they empty into the Yellow Sea. From there it stretches through Korea’s western and central lowlands (where farming had been the major economic activity before the war) until it climbs rolling foothills into the rugged, densely forested Taebaek-san Mountains, which run along the eastern edge of the peninsula and slope precipitously to the East Sea (Sea of Japan). Although narrow, the DMZ represents a nearly complete set of Korean ecosystems within its boundaries, ranging from wetlands to grasslands to mountainous highlands, all of them largely untouched by human