Gwangpo Bay

According to Sacheon Branch[2] of Korean Federation for Environmental Movement[3] (Friends of the Earth Korea[4]), 117 species of birds were found in this bay by the research conducted from 2000 to 2007. During the research, 150 Saunders's gulls were found together. White-naped cranes and black-faced spoonbills were also found here.

A large area of the bay is covered with seashore lawn grass (Zoysia sinica), and it is estimated that this is the biggest community of this species in Korea.[4] Communities of a threatened species [5] of Ellobium chinense, which belongs to the mollusc family Ellobiidae were found in June 2008 [6] inside the community of seashore lawn grass.

And a community of eelgrass (Zostera marina) was found in the Gwangpo Bay.[7] Eelgrass is regarded as a very important ecology member, as it provides fishes spawning ground, and it absorb a great amount of CO₂. According to research conducted in Gwangyang Bay, next to Gwangpo Bay, 57 species of fish were found in the eelgrass.[8]

The local government has a plan to reclaim almost two million square meters of land from Gwangpo Bay for the shipbuilding industry.[1] The government expects the cost would be 350 billion South Korean wons (350 million US dollars).[11] But this plan is not the first one. Even in the 1990s, a company was planning to reclaim this tidal flat.[11] The debates between reclamation and protection have continued since then.

The local branch of Friends of the Earth made a civil research group to study the ecology of this Bay. The group conducted monthly research from 2000 to 2007.[4] Perhaps because of such efforts, the plan to reclaim this Bay was not accepted by the central government on July 8, 2008.[1] But the local government has not given up the plan for reclamation, preparing for the next review by the central government.[12]