SD long-term issues in South Korea

This post is made for providing my answers to the assignment given from VOC2 Sustainable Development learning environment.  http://interdisciplinaryappraoach.blogspot.fi/p/welcome.html

5. Read through the information on sustainable development on this blog. Use it to help you answer the questions below, along with your own experiences and expertise

  b. If you are from another culture than Finnish give a brief overview of the socio- political landscape of the country, resources and their constraints. What are the values and the attitudes of the local people towards sustainable development? Are there any concerns related to sustainable development long term?

 Being harmonized with nature has been always valued highly in South Korea for the most of time in over 5000 years history. However in early 1900s Japanese colonial period, Korea was environmentally disastrous situations such as pesticides, excessive use of fertilizer, water pollution caused rapid destruction of rural ecosystems. Environmental destruction continued   until Korean War, it caused deforestation and decreasing biodiversity. I remember that 5^th of April is Arbor Day in Korea, individuals and groups are encourage to plant and take care of trees for rebuilding green mountains.

Now South Korea is one of the world’s fastest-growing country in economy since from 1960s to still in the 2000s. The industrialization have brought many big changes to the way of Korean’s life. About 24.5 million out of the total of 50 million population live in Seoul capital area, which is one of the world’s largest metropolitan area. Considering its geographical landscape, about 70% is mountains and 30 % is lowland, the industrialization has caused high density of population in urban areas. So it has faced many environmental challenges in many decades, for example, industrial pollutions, water and air pollutions, and oil spill in the ocean. However, there have been recent efforts to balance these problems, including a government run $84 billion five-year green growth project that aims to boost energy efficiency and green technology.

South Korean concerns about long-term SD are in the energy, food supply imbalance of resources in the world which are predicted as the critical situation. If there is no proactive effort for systematically managing of energy and resources, there is no national development as well as improving the quality of life in the future.
 

 Image retrieved from International Energy Outlook 2013

References:

·        South Korea in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea

·        정보기술과 자원.환경의 개발과 보전 - 정보통신정책연구원https://www.google.fi/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEMQFjAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kisdi.re.kr%2Fkisdi%2Fcommon%2Fpremium%3Ffile%3D1%257C10238&ei=hdsHU6SYLYPD4wT35YHAAg&usg=AFQjCNE9eRZPhHVP1MVNPYvHP9t1pmMjAg&sig2=9CLN5fJLYxjNHjoZHwn1LA&bvm=bv.61725948,d.bGE

·        International Energy Outlook 2013: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/world.cfm