[The Hwankyung Ilbo] The Ministry of Environment said that 74 wetlands have been lost and 91 have decreased in size after a research with the National Wetlands Center over the past three years.

The result of the survey is based on an analysis of the results of the 2nd national inland wetland basic research project conducted by the National Wetland Center for three years from 2016 to 2018.

The national inland wetland basic research project is a project for inland wetlands across the country every five year to manage the history of inland wetlands such as loss of wetlands and change in wetland boundary and major species.

The research found that 90 percent (148 wetlands) of the 165 wetlands were found to be damaged by artificial factors such as being used as arable land or construction of facilities such as roads. On the other hand, only 10 percent (17 wetlands) were turned into grasslands or forests by natural factors.

The Ministry of Environment plans to strengthen the wetland conservation policy as most of the inland wetlands not designated as wetland conservation areas (total 45) under the Wetland Conservation Act were found to be exposed to unreasonable development pressure.

In the short term, when discussing the environmental impact assessment for development projects in the future, the project including the wetland in the project site will be included as assessment target to minimize the destroy of wetlands.

In addition, in the long-term, the government will actively promote the introduction of the total volume of natural resource system in order to fundamentally prevent the damage of the wetland.

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