Professor, Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS)

　

　

 Korea is surrounded by seas in three directions. Furthermore, the country has numerous islands off the southern and southwestern coasts, possessing a very long coastline compared with its land area. With this maritime environment, the seas are vital for Korea in terms of resources, transportation of its exports and imports, and etc.

 Korea is one of very few countries that has a single, integrated maritime agency, which was established in 1996. However, there have been many micro-policies that deal with the issue of marine environmental protection. The effort to harmonize and unify the various ocean activities has been lacking.

 It is argued in Korea that the national strategy to protect marine environment is approached in a haphazard way or with expediency, which reflects the absence of coherent thought and action in pursuit of deliberately formulated objectives. To be sure, despite the creation of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Korean national strategy to protect marine environment seems to be pushed and pulled by the dynamics of each issue, compounded by the occasional intrusion of external demands.

 In view of the problem, and given the importance of marine environment and resources to the Korean economy, there is a need to establish a new direction for the country's strategy to protect marine environment. Any measures to solve this problem should be coherent, so as to achieve an integrated national strategy? a policy guideline that unifies, coordinates, and provides priorities for national uses of the sea. Now it is time to develop guidelines for designing and implementing programs in marine policy and in ocean management and development, where such activities fit into the wider development strategy for a new century.

　

　

 Korea (the Republic of Korea) is surrounded by seas in three directions: the West Sea(commonly called the Yellow Sea), the South Sea, and the East Sea. The West Sea, a semi-enclosed sea bordered by Korea and China, is very shallow with an average depth of only 44 meters. It has very rich fishing areas but, at the same time, is very vulnerable to pollution, as some of the major rivers of China and Korea drain into it. During the last two decades, Korea has endeavored to curtail the inflow of pollutants to the sea through a combination of environmental regulation and environmental investments. However, as China has recently become a heavy polluter of the West Sea, there is concern that it may still become a pollution haven or even a dead sea.

 The South Sea, as a part of the East China Sea with an average depth of 100-270 meters, also has very productive fisheries and is vulnerable to pollution from the many industrial complexes along the southern coast of Korea, including petroleum facilities and steel mills. The East Sea has rich fishing ground as well, and its greater depth(the average is about 1,700 meters and its deepest area reaching over 4,000 meters) and stronger currents make it less vulnerable to pollution than the West and South seas.

 With this maritime environment, the seas are vital for Korea in terms of resources, transportation of its exports and imports, and etc. Recognizing this, the author would like to examine the Korean national strategy to protect marine environment, focusing on its laws, institutions and programs.

　

 Korea is one of a very few countries that has a single, integrated maritime agency, which was established in 1996. The establishment of such an agency had been considered since 1991, when the Office of the Prime Minister organized a small group of experts to study the issue. At that time there was not much support for establishing another cabinet-level agency, but in the 1992 presidential election, the ruling party's candidate, Kim Young Sam, pledged to do so. Kim Young Sam won the election but rarely mentioned this promise until 1995, after Korea had suffered the two major oil pollution incidents described earlier and the worst red tide event in its history.

 The government agencies were essentially helpless in the face of these problems, as no single agency had a clear responsibility to protect the marine environment. Furthermore, the areas of ocean management were functionally scattered amongst a variety of ministries. At the time, the Ministry of Environment was responsible for overall policy planning and coordination relating to marine pollution. The Maritime Police Agency and the Ministry of Home Affairs were responsible for the oil pollution clean-up, but the Ministry of Home Affairs typically treated such incidents as a 'minor' or 'less imminent task.' Other government agencies with some responsibilities relating to the marine environment were the Maritime and Port Administration, within the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, and the Office of Fisheries, which was part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. In short, there were many agencies with some kind of marine responsibility but no 'lead agency' with responsibility for the marine environment. As a result, marine environmental protection had no policy priority.

 On May 31, 1996, at Korea's first Day of Sea ceremony, the then President Kim Young Sam announced that the MOMAF would be established. The Maritime and Port Administration, the Office of Fisheries and the Maritime Police Agency were integrated into MOMAF, as were the marine environment section of the Ministry of Environment and the coastal zone management section of the Ministry of Construction and Transportation. The creation of MOMAF was intended to unify and harmonize the various marine-related activities of the many governmental organizations that deal with the ocean affairs.

 As a consequence, MOMAF is now the sole agency in Korea that encompasses all authorities and responsibilities concerning marine environmental protection. Although there are some who argue that combining all these functions in a single, integrated maritime ministry has its drawbacks, it is broadly agreed that, where issues of marine pollution and environmental protection are concerned, a single, integrated MOMAF functions much better than the previous arrangement.

　

　

　

 Originally enacted in 1977 and wholly amended in 1991, this Act provides not only the general principles of marine pollution control but also the regulations on marine pollution arising from vessel operations, ocean dumping, and sea-bed exploitation. The Act was most recently amended in 2001. Its provisions and enforcement generally follow the current international standards set by the MARPOL Convention and the London Dumping Convention.

 The major provisions of the Prevention of Marine Pollution Act are organized as follows:

　

　

 This Act, enacted in 1992 and amended in 1997, provides the rules and procedures for the compensation of oil pollution damage by ships. It generally incorporates the provisions of the Civil Liability Convention and the Fund Convention.

　

 In February 1999, the National Assembly passed the Coastal Zone Management Act. It was heavily influenced by the U.S. Coastal Zone Management Act and by "Agenda 21," which was adopted by UNCED in 1992.

 Under the Coastal Zone Management Act, MOMAF is now authorized to plan and coordinate the various activities in coastal areas according to the principles and practices of integrated coastal zone management. Since the coastal zone is particularly subject to multiple use, the Act provides comprehensive guidelines for managing the various coastal activities in Korea.

　

 This Act was also passed in February 1999, and it gives MOMAF and the Ministry of Environment joint authority for its enforcement. MOMAF is responsible for the protection and management of coastal wetlands, and the Ministry of Environment is responsible for designating protected inland wetland areas and taking the measures necessary for their preservation.

　

 The Environment Conservation Law, which are supervised by the Ministry of Environment, regulates discharges of land-based pollutants from point sources such as power plants, municipal sewage treatment plants and agricultural feedlots.

 The Water Quality Control Act and the Waste Control Act, are additional laws of relevance to the quality of the marine environment.

　

 In Korea, more than 30% of the total population live in the coastal areas. Demand for development in the coastal zone is very high, and, as a result, serious tension often erupts among different users, and between developers and conservationists. With the enactment of the Coastal Zone Management Act, MOMAF is now giving high priority to integrated coastal zone management. Among MOMAF's most important policy tools are geographic and management information systems (GIS and MIS), which are now in the early stages of application.

　

 As part of the 1999 amendment of the Prevention of Marine Pollution Act, MOMAF designated five pristine coastal sea areas as Environmental Preservation Zones(EPZ) and designated six polluted coastal sea areas such as Shihwa-Incheon, Ulsan, Pusan, Masan and Kwangyang as Specially Managed Coastal Areas.¹ The basic concept of the arrangement of the EPZs is to set aside certain portion of ocean space as preserves, protected from the adverse impact of increased ocean use.

　

 MOMAF is expanding its existing monitoring system to include a marine pollution remote sensing system that is currently in development. MOMAF is also now developing a Comprehensive Marine Environment Information Database System.

　

 A number of oil spill accidents, including the Sea Prince incident of 1995, demonstrated that Korea was completely unprepared for an oil pollution spill on such a large scale. In particular, the oil spill incident in 1995 showed that the civilian response capacity was completely inadequate. In addition to motivating the establishment of MOMAF in 1995, such an incident led to the establishment of the Korea Marine Pollution Response Corporation (KMPRC) under the 1997 amendment of the Prevention of Marine Pollution Act.

 KMPRC is a non-profit corporation charged with the prevention and removal of pollution by oil and other wastes discharged from ships and oil storage facilities. KMPRC's members include 11 oil storage companies, 65 oil tanker owners, and 14 shipping companies that own ships other than tankers. KMPRC members are expected to pay fees, which are assessed on the basis of such factors as the total gross tonnage of their ships or their total gross income from the sale, shipping, or storage of oil. The corporation has sections or committees that focus on clean-up operations and towing capacity. As of early 2000, it had 384 personnel.

 KMPRC is generally considered a civilian operation, but its clean-up function is basically a governmental function and the government may provide financial assistance to the corporation. Thus, KMPRC is actually a hybrid organization-semi-governmental and semi-private-that is unique among Korean institutions.

　

 Undersea rubbish and untreated sewage are also major pollution problems. All kinds of rubbish, from fishing gears and nets to household solid wastes, have been dumped in the coastal seas of Korea. The dumping of household solid wastes has occurred mainly because of a lack of appropriate disposal facilities, such as incinerators, in coastal towns. For similar reasons, numerous commercial and residential buildings at the water's edge discharge their wastewater directly into the sea. There is a growing need for municipal wastewater treatment facilities in coastal cities and towns, but priority has always been given to the towns located in the catchment areas of the upstream tributaries of major rivers. This was especially the case before 1996, when the Ministry of Environment was responsible for policy planning and coordination of marine pollution issues.

 Fishermen also bear responsibility for the enormous amount of undersea rubbish. Fishermen simply have not cared about how they disposed their own wastes, even though they have complained that marine pollution is a major reason for the declining fish catch. MOMAF is now in charge of the undersea rubbish problem, and in 1999 it conducted its first major investigation. It is expected that clean-up operations will be expanded as a result.

　

 Korea has been actively involved with regional marine environmental cooperation in the North Pacific region. Korea and China are conducting joint research for the protection of the Yellow Sea, in which Korea's participation is led by the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI). Another example of regional cooperation is Korea's role as a key member of UNEP's NOWPAP (North West Pacific Ocean and Coastal Programme). Korea shares common interest with the international community in the protection of the marine environment by joining a number of multilateral agreements such as the MARPOL and others.

　

 The author examined the Korean national strategy to protect marine environment, focusing on its laws, institutions and programs. To sum up, there are many micro-policies that deal with the issue of marine environmental protection, but the effort to harmonize and unify the various ocean activities is lacking. It is argued in Korea that the national strategy to protect marine environment is approached in a haphazard way or with expediency, which reflects the absence of coherent thought and action in pursuit of deliberately formulated objectives. To be sure, despite the creation of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Korean national strategy to protect marine environment seems to be pushed and pulled by the dynamics of each issue, compounded by the occasional intrusion of external demands. Hence, many experts criticize the Korean national strategy to protect marine environment as merely the aggregation of expedient responses to external demands, and primarily reactive.

 In view of the problem, and given the importance of marine environment and resources to the Korean economy, there is a need to establish a new direction for the country's strategy to protect marine environment. Any measures to solve this problem should be coherent, so as to achieve an integrated national strategy-a policy guideline that unifies, coordinates, and provides priorities for national uses of the sea. Now it is time to develop guidelines for designing and implementing programs in marine policy and in ocean management and development, where such activities fit into the wider development strategy for a new century.