[The Hwankyung Ilbo] The Korea National Park Service under the Ministry of Environment announced that it will strengthen management by using ship monitoring systems and drones to prevent illegal activities such as cooking and camping at the maritime national park.

The ship monitoring system displays the location signal of a wireless device or an AIS (Automatic Identification System) installed on a ship on the screen, which can verify the name and location of the ship in real time.

The national park ship monitoring system is operated in conjunction with the marine location information of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Korea Coast Guard.

In addition, the Korea National Park Service has introduced drones since 2014 to use them to crack down on illegal activities. Currently, there are 75 drones operating in 21 national parks.

Under the Natural Park Act, people who enter areas where access is prohibited and cook or camp outside designated places will be fined up to 500,000 won.

“We are actively utilizing new information and communication technologies such as ship monitoring systems and drones to effectively manage the maritime national park,” said an official from the Korea National Park Service. “We plan to gradually restrict access to the uninhabited islands of entire maritime coastal national parks in order to prevent illegal activities that occur in a repetitive manner.”

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