In Korean DMZ, Wildlife Thrives. Some Conservationists Worry Peace Could Disrupt It

"The quiet of the late-winter morning is interrupted by a staccato of gunshots."

"'Military drills,"' shrugs Kim Seung-ho, 58, the director of the DMZ Ecology Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that does research on the wildlife in the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, which is the border area between North and South Korea. A thick blanket of fog seeps over the forested hills on this late-winter morning as Kim stands, searching the horizon for birds, on the bank of the Imjin River just north of Paju, South Korea."

"This morning, Kim and the institute's intern Pyo Gina, 24, are on their weekly trip to count birds just outside the DMZ, a 155-mile-long, 2.5-mile-wide strip of land that has been virtually untouched by humans for more than six decades. This strip of land became an unintentional wildlife sanctuary when the two Koreas pulled back from the area after an armistice was signed in their 1950-53 war."

"The DMZ is fortified with tall, barbed-wire fences, riddled with land mines and heavily guarded by the respective countries' militaries, keeping all human disturbances to a minimum. After people left the area, plants and wildlife were able to grow unrestrained. But with increasing goodwill between North and South Korea, environmentalists like Kim fear that the protected nature of the area is changing and may lead to detrimental effects on the wildlife."