Press Release

TED TURNER, REP. CURT WELDON TO DISCUSS DMZ PEACE PARK IN NORTH KOREA, THEN ADDRESS DMZ FORUM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, AUGUST 16-17, 2005

Ted Turner, founder of CNN, Rep. Curt Weldon (R.Pa) and Willem van Reit, Executive Vice-Chair of the Peace Parks Foundation, will be the principal speakers at the sixth annual conference of the DMZ Forum in Koyang City, South Korea, August 16-17. Turner and Weldon will visit North Korea before the Conference.

The DMZ Forum is an international non-governmental organization formed in 1998 to preserve the 2.4-mile Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) across the Korean peninsula between North and South Korea as an environmental laboratory and eventual Peace Park for eco-tourism. This 155-mile-long strip of land was devastated by the 1950-53 Korean War and has had almost no human intrusion since.

The Conference is co-sponsored by Gyeonggi Province, in South Korea’s northwest corner adjacent to the DMZ. Governor Sohn Hak-Kyu will speak and host the participants. Representatives of the Republic of Korea government will greet the conferees.

“The DMZ can teach scientists how nature restores itself when humans are absent, and it can be a seedbed to restore species destroyed both north and south of the DMZ,” according to Ke Chung Kim, Chair of the Forum, Professor of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University and Director of its Center on Biodiversity. “Then both countries can profit from eco-tourism in a DMZ Peace Park.”

“The DMZ and the contiguous Civilian Control Zone (CCZ) in the Republic of Korea--3-12 miles across the peninsula--contain five rivers and many ecosystems, including forests, mountains, wetlands, prairies, bogs and estuaries,” Professor Kim said. “There are over 1,100 plant species; 50 mammal species, including Asiatic Black Bear, leopard, lynx, sheep and possibly tiger; hundreds of bird species, many of which are endangered, including Black-faced Spoonbill, Red-crowned and White-napped Cranes and Black Vulture; and over 80 fish species. These species represent 67% of Korea’s fauna. Hundreds of bird species migrate through the DMZ going to and from Mongolia, China, Russia, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines and Australia “

Turner will be attending on behalf of his family’s grant-making foundation, The Turner Foundation, which promotes the preservation of the world’s natural habitat and builds constituencies for preservation.

Rep. Weldon has led two delegations of Congress to North Korea to promote international interchange with North Koreans and is a member of two environmental commissions.

The Peace Parks Foundation has established six nature reserves that cross international borders in Africa and promotes the establishment of cross-boundary peace parks throughout the world. In addition to Dr. Reit, the Chair of the Foundation’s Fund-Raising Committee, Hans Stroebel, will speak at the Conference.

Other Conference speakers are: Dr. Deborah Gordon, Stanford-Harvard Preventive Defense Project, Stanford University; Dr. George Archibald, Co-founder, International Crane Foundation; Dr. Malcolm C. Coulter, Co-Chair, IUCN Specialist Group on Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills; Dr. Dmitri G. Pikounov, Pacific Geographic Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Far Eastern Branch, Russia; Mr. Yann Artutus-Bertrand, Photographer, France; Dr. Xi Yongmei, Zhejang University, Hanzhou, China; Simba Chan, International Bird-Life, Japan; Ms. Kosima Weber-Liu, Environmental Education Media Project, Beijing, and PINTEC Environmental Library Program, Pyongyang, North Korea.

The Conference theme is Pan-Korean Nature Conservation, looking critically at the state of the environment in both Koreas. Speakers will emphasize the importance of increasing the weight given environmental preservation in public and business decisions and of initiating ecosystem restoration with the help of the DMZ.

INFORMATION: Bill Shore, Secretary, DMZ Forum: 212 817-7246; bshore@gc.cuny.edu; bshore@kohudres.kendal.org