‘Landmines have become the greatest protectors’: how wildlife is thriving in the Korean DMZ | Biodiversity | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/21/north-south-korea-war-demilitarised-zone-dmz-ecology-endangered-wildlif
tanding on top of a small mountain, Kim Seung-ho gazes out over an expanse of paddy fields glowing in their autumn gold, the ripening grains swaying gently in the wind. In the distance, North Korea stretches beyond the horizon.
“It’s so peaceful,” says the director of the DMZ Ecology Research Institute. “Over there, it used to be an artillery range, but since they stopped firing, the nature has become so beautiful.”
The land before him is the demilitarised zone, or DMZ, a strip of land that runs across the Korean peninsula, dividing North and South Korea roughly along the 38th parallel north.
This heavily fortified border was created after the devastating Korean war, which lasted from 1950 to 1953. The conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, establishing a buffer zone between the two countries that remain in a technical state of war.
