For eight years, the DMZ Forum
has been talking to people
around the world about the Demilitarized Zone in Korea. We
have told them that the DMZ can be the key to peace and environmental
restoration on the Peninsula. The idea has caught people’s
imagination wherever we have described it. Nature’s
resurgence, with no humans touching most of the DMZ for 52
years, has excited strong interest of scientists and ordinary
people. They are eager to know what environmental science
can learn from this special land and how we can use what nature
has accomplished in the DMZ to repair what humans have done
to nature both north and south of it. They are hopeful that
we can use the DMZ as a peace park, teaching visitors from
around the world about the environment, with great profit
to both North and South Korea. And they are hopeful that this
common enterprise of North and South Korea can contribute
to peace and broad cooperation between them
Preserving the DMZ for all these purposes has been an easy
idea to sell. People everywhere quickly embrace it. Several
have volunteered financial support before we even asked. Distinguished
scientists and public policy leaders have testified to the
power of the idea of preserving the demilitarized zone as
an eco-tourist peace park and environmental laboratory. Their
testimony demonstrates that the idea is scientifically valid
and socially important, and provides substantial hope that
we can achieve our goals because they have great influence
in the world.
Ted Turner, who founded CNN, the outlet for news heard--and
gathered--throughout the world, will address the 2005
DMZ Forum conference and visit North Korea in support of the
DMZ Forum mission. He established the Turner Foundation
to protect the world’s natural systems-healthy habitat
for wildlife and humans-stimulating new constituencies for
a healthy world environment. He gave a billion dollars to
the United Nations Foundation to promote international cooperation
through the UN. And he established and co-chairs the Nuclear
Threat Initiative to protect the world from a nuclear disaster.
Ted Turner’s dedication to the goals of the DMZ Forum
testifies that the goals have world significance.
The DMZ Forum already has begun to protect important bird
habitat in both North and South Korea. At a meeting with North
and South Korean environmental experts and scientists from
six more countries, a program was launched to increase farm
output adjacent to the DMZ, which would provide the food that
endangered cranes and other threatened bird species need to
survive.
We thank all of you for joining in this momentous effort. |
