Ministry of Environment (MOE) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) announced that Korea will become the World Conservation Union (IUCN)’s 82nd state member on September 1, 2006. Korea’s admission to the IUCN as a state member will lay a foundation for international exchange and cooperation in natural environment conservation. 

IUCN is an international organization that examines ecosystem’s positive and negative impacts on human beings and it drafted the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (1973) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (1982). In recent years, IUCN has been focusing on assessing the efficient management of protected areas including national parks and protected wetlands in each country.

MOE joined the IUCN in 1985 as a government agency member and 4 NGOs including the Korean Association for Conservation of Nature (KACN) and the Korea Society for Protection of Wild Animals (KSPWA) are also the members of the IUCN.

Twenty-four out of thirty OECD member countries are IUCN state members and 109 government agency members are mostly developing countries or underdeveloped countries.

With the upgrade to a state member of IUCN, Korea expects that its diplomatic leverage in the area of natural environment conservation will be enhanced and that its rank of World Economic Forum’s Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) will go up. 

First example of Korea’s increased diplomatic leverage is the number of votes in the IUCN General Assembly. As a state member, Korea has 3 votes instead of government agency member’s 1 vote in the General Assembly which is convened every 4 years and would have more say in giving recommendations to members and electing executives to the assembly.

Secondly, MOE and other government agencies can voice their opinions in th e IUCN General Assembly as state representatives of Korea. Without the state membership, MOE was the only channel for Korea to participate in the international efforts for natural environment conservation.

Therefore, representatives from the government and NGOs will actively participate in the 4th IUCN General Assembly in 2008 in China.

Thirdly, with close cooperation with the IUCN on natural environment, Korea will see advancement in the management of protected areas in Korea.

Korea and the IUCN will cooperate in designating protected areas and communicating with residents in the neighborhoods of protected areas. Also, Korea will work closely with the IUCN to make criteria for categorization of protected areas that complies with the international standard by categorizing and listing Korea’s protected areas according to IUCN categories and re-categorizing 38 protected areas that were already listed in the IUCN Protected Area Category.

The IUCN Protected Area Category (Ⅰ-Ⅵ) was officially adopted in the 7th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP7) to be the international standard for global protected area management.

Korea’s protected areas including 27 Ecosystem and Landscape Conservation Areas, 16 Protected Wetlands, and 75 Natural Parks account for 11.1% of total land area as of August 2006.

Korea’s protected areas listed in the IUCN Protected Area Category

※ Higher category number represents more human intervention and use.

Lastly, Korea’s admission to the IUCN as a state member will help raise its ESI rank of 122nd out of 146 countries as of 2005.

The state membership and Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Fisheries (MOMAF) and other ministries’ efforts to become government agency members will improve the score for one of the ESI indicators (total 76 indicators), ‘No. of IUCN members,’ and it will contribute to moving up Korea’s ESI rank.

Commemorating Korea’s state membership to the IUCN, an International Workshop on Protected Areas will be hosted in October this year by MOE, MOMAF, and IUCN in Jeju Island. This international workshop will be an opportunity for Korea to strengthen cooperation with the IUCN by reviewing problems of Korea’s protected area management and seeking measures for improvement.