Demilitarized Zone and the Civilian Control Zone

History and Definition Demilitarized Zone and the civilian control zone, unlike the rest of the Korean territory, is a particular place artificially created by the Armistice Agreement in order to control and limit the entry and exit of civilian population. In accordance with the ceasefire agreement signed on July 27, 1953, the then combat line was chosen as the new military demarcation line, along which a 4 kilometer-wide demilitarized zone, two kilometers each southwards and northwards, was to be established.

Then, in February, 1954, the 8th Army Commander of the U.S. Army established by virtue of his authority an agricultural limitation line by which civilian farming was regulated in order to protect military operations and facilities and for security purposes in the hostile area adjacent to the southern demarcation line of DMZ; it was renamed civilian control line in June, 1958, when the Korean troops were put in charge of defending the armistice line. This area, lying 5 to 20 kilometers from the southernmost demarcation line, covers a total of 1,528 km² (480km² for Gyeonggi-do Province and 1,048km² for Gangwon-do Province) and is called Northern District to the north of the civilian control line

Geographical Distribution and the Need for Preservation DMZ and the Northern District to the civilian control line extends over two provinces and 14 cities and counties, namely, the northern parts of the cities of Dongducheon, Goyang, Paju and Gimpo and the counties of Yangju, Yeoncheon, Pocheon, Ganghwa and Ongjin in Gyeonggi-do Province, the northern parts of Cheorwon, Hwacheon, Yanggu, Inje and Goseong in Gangwon-do Province and North Gangwon-do. From a geographical point of view, DMZ and the Northern District to the civilian control line occupy part of the central region of the Korean peninsula including the west coast area with Han-gang and Imjin-gang rivers flowing through it, the inland area with its Hantan-gang and upper Han-gang rivers and the northern part of the areas to the west and east of Taebaek Mountains.

The west coast area in the central region and the neighboring inland that form part of the Northern District to the civilian control line are widely covered with plains and hills. This area had a high population density even before the Gyeong-uiseon Railway (Seoul-Sinuiju, North Korea) and the Gyeongwonseon Railway (Seoul-Yeoncheon-Cheorwon-Pyeonggang-Wonju) were laid, and its landscape and ecosystem must have been greatly affected by human hands. The other areas of the central region also seem to have been affected likewise, though to a lesser extent than the west coast area, before the ceasefire. However, the area's ecosystem had been seriously devastated by the warfare from June 25, 1950 and July 27, 1953.

The process was further aggravated because the U.N. Command, which had successfully repelled the enemy aggression in the spring of 1951 and decided not to carry out further counterattacks, had decided to take up defensive positions on Gamje Hill located to the immediate north of the 38th parallel, based on the conclusion that a limited advance was the right tactic to deliver a maximum damage to the enemy while exposing the allied forces to risks to the least degree possible. When the ceasefire conference went underway on July 10, 1951. the war turned into a phase of position operations with both sides engaging in reconnoitering skirmishes and incessant capturing and recapturing of hills; the most fierce fights were conducted, among others, on 351-meter Hill, Punchbowl Zone, Pi-ui-neongseon (Bloody Ridge) and Danjang (Heart-rending) Ridge in the east and Sudo Hill, Jihyeong (Topography) Ridge, Jeogyeog (Sniper) Ridge, Cheorui-samgak-jidae (Triangular Zone of Iron) and Baekma-goji (White Horse Hill). The places in the vicinity of the current armistice line and the civilian control line are where the severest environmental destruction occurred, as dense forests had been burnt down or sprayed with defoliant in an effort to secure full visibility for campaign when the war came to a deadlock from 1951 to 1953; afterwards, they were also hailed with bombings, bringing further ruin However, with the ceasefire, the civilian control line was set up for the purposes of military operations and security, limiting human settlement, unauthorized access and the agricultural exploitation of the land for 40 years. Agricultural activities were allowed in a limited way when the government began to give case-by-case permissions for live-in farming and farming by commuters; since 1967, the land was more actively utilized than before, when the government implemented Community Farming Project.

Most of the Northern District to the civilian control line has a well-preserved natural environment immune from human interference, making it one of the exceptional areas in Korea where environmental destruction is well under control; even in those places where civilians are permitted to live or enter, they are only allowed to use the land mainly for farming activities. Mountainous areas difficult for humans to approach have become an excellent habitat for rare species of animal and plant; the dwellings and arable land used by people in the past have been abandoned to the course of the nature and have undergone new ecological changes so that they are now good objects of research in ecology. If and when, after reunification, DMZ and the Northern District to the civilian control line are completely opened to people so as to be ecologically devastated and environmentally subjected to severe pollution by the human interference like the rest of the country, this will become another grave problem from the view point of a rational use and management of the land. If we are to overcome in the future the current environmental problems that have been caused by the economy-first policy in the absence of a comprehensive preliminary survey of the national geography, a natural and geographical survey should first be made of the DMZ and the Northern District to the civilian control line to be integrated into the long-term plan for the development and utilization of the land after reunification. Only when a rational plan is established for the utilization and preservation of the DMZ and the Northern District to the civilian control line on the basis of the preliminary natural and geographical survey, then the environmental contamination and ecological havoc to be caused by post-reunification development efforts could be kept to the minimum