Korean Peninsula and the Environment

As tensions in Korea remain uncomfortably high, consider this tidbit that Ari Kelman quoted in The Nation, May 10:

[I]ntractable strife has transformed the Korean Demilitarized Zone into an "Eden" entirely given over to wild nature, but only because it's a no man's land. As [Caroline] Fraser notes: "The 38th parallel, a border 155 miles long and 2½ miles wide, guarded by two million North and South Korean soldiers, is believed to be the best-preserved piece of land on earth. It is also the most dangerous. No human being has set foot in it in fifty-five years."

Kelman similarly notes (presumably again from Fraser) that the "land separating East from West Germany, was among 'the most undisturbed natural areas' in Europe."

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