DMZ Land Register to be Restored Beginning Next Year

The Ministry of Environment announced on August 24 that it will push ahead with measures to preserve the ecology of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and conduct land investigation as the first step of the preservation effort.

After the end of the investigation, it plans to make joint efforts with North Korea in having the DMZ designated as the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

The Ministry of Environment will measure the southern demarcation line of the DMZ in cooperation with the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense next year. Based on the measurement, data such as location, number, category, size, and ownership of each lot will be documented in order to restore a land register of the area.

Jeong Hoi-seok, the Nature Conservation Bureau chief at the Ministry of Environment, said that ownership of DMZ land has been unknown since the 1940s farmland reform. He also added that processes such as a public announcement will be made to figure out the ownership of the land.

In the southern DMZ of Yeoncheon-gun and Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do, the area of which ownership is unknown amounts to 78 percent.

Kwang-Hyun Kim kkh@donga.com