Between the two Koreas at war, nature has regained its rights – Libération

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North Korea, the escalation file Since 1953 and the end of the Korean clashes, a demilitarized zone has cut the peninsula in two. Many endangered species have found refuge there, despite the mines and the prospects for economic development in its surroundings.

Indifferent to the divisions that reign between men, they fly from flower to flower. THE “little darlings” of Cho Seong-hoan can freely cross the border to forage in the North, where the nectar and water are of better quality because nature “is not polluted”. This beekeeper, based in the heart of the inter-Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ), took over the family business upon the death of his father in 2022, after working alongside him for nearly a decade.

The DMZ, a strip of land 248 km long and about 4 km wide that has bisected the Korean Peninsula since the 1953 armistice, has accidentally become a haven of biodiversity. In the absence of human activity, apart from the patrols of the various forces there, nature has regained its rights. Cho Seong-hoan’s bees can produce “eco-responsible” honey there, almost impossible to find elsewhere in densely populated and very industrial South Korea.

Its 200 hives are located more precisely in the civil control zone (CCZ), 8 km wide, which acts as a buffer between the DMZ and the rest of the country. To access his beloved insects, the 59-year-old former ceramicist must pass through the Unification Bridge checkpoint every day, and return to his home in Paju before sunset. Flanked by his two sapsals, a Korean dog breed