For last a few decades, acknowledgement of wetlands values and functions has been dramatically changed. Until now, wetlands had been considered as abandoned or useless lands. Especially, Korea, which didn't have a long land, has strived to reclaimed l...
For last a few decades, acknowledgement of wetlands values and functions has been dramatically changed. Until now, wetlands had been considered as abandoned or useless lands. Especially, Korea, which didn't have a long land, has strived to reclaimed land from wetlands in order to extend territorial land. On the other hand, many developed countries(such as EU, U.S. and so on) worked hard to conserve wetlands, early acknowledging the importance of wetlands. As a result, International Ramsar Convention(Convention on the Wetlands of International Importance, Especially as Waterfowl Habitat) was adopted in Ramsar, Iran, 1971. Although Ramsar Convention was started by international agreement to protect habitats of specific species, this convention has been developed to promote the value of wetlands as a treasure house of biodiversity as well as a waterfowl habitats, and to conservate wetlands which have functions of flood control and purification of water quality.
Korea joined the Ramsar Convention in 1997 and enacted the Wetlands Conservation Act in 1999. But this Act, as it stands, is blamed that it is insufficient to prevent wetlands loss and destruction. Thus, this study intends to understand problems of existing Wetlands Conservation Act and other relevant Acts and then to present improvement scheme of these domestic legislation.
First of all, Wetlands Conservation Act has some problems which are limited the scope to conserve and designate the wetlands as well as there are little measures to guarantee the implement of conservation of wetlands and the exception of restrictive practice is unclear. In addition, there are no financial provision to support the implement of this Act. Also, this study concluded that other domestic legislations were insufficient to conserve the wetlands, reviewing domestic legislations relevant to wetlands. For instance, some domestic laws might encourage reclamation on the public water(including tidal flat) and the Coastal Zone Management Act(1999) didn't enough to include the process of collecting public opinion.
This study reviewed the Ramsar Convention as well as other international conventions on the wetlands, and U.S. federal regulations, policies, and programs in terms of comparative law.
The U.S. federal policy of wetlands is no net loss policy. And Clean Water Act Section 404 plays an important role in conserving the wetlands. This Act regulates activities that result in the discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States. Under Section 404, U.S. Army Corps and Engineers have the authority to issue permits and Environment Protection Agency can veto USACE's permit if EPA determined that the discharge would have unacceptable adverse impacts on wetlands. Especially, the key role of USACE's permit process is the legal duty of mitigation. Mitigation duty requires avoidance and minimization of wetlands damage, and if developer inevitably damaged wetlands, developer should compensate wetlands corresponding to the damaged wetlands. Meanwhile to ease the mitigation duty(especially, compensatory mitigation), mitigation banking program is alternatively using in U.S.A. Generally, mitigation banking is considered as an effective system to conservate wetlands.
Consequently, this study suggests the improvements of Wetlands Conservation Act(1999) such as extending scope of coastal wetlands, requiring legal duty of establishing alternative wetlands, minimizing exception of restrictive practice, and creating fund. And I suggest that we adopt U.S. federal mitigation systems and mitigation banking program into our legislation.