Natural Opportunities for Conflict Resolution with North Korea

Forbes

09-07-2025

Western rim of Heaven Lake in the caldera of the Changbaishan volcano on the border between China ... More and North Korea. A Chinese soldier takes a leisurely photo with his phone viewing the North Korean side of the border. Photo by
Last week, I found myself literally a stone's throw away from North Korea (or officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea – DPRK). During a visit to the Chinese city of Yanji, my hosts informed me that this was the perfect season to visit a sacred dormant volcano known as Changbaishan (called Paekdu or Baekdu in Korean). Crowning the caldera at over 9,000 feet above sea level is 'Heaven Lake' which is on the border between North Korea and China and constitutes a designated UNESCO biosphere reserve. Standing on the rim of the enchanting lake, I could see the North Korean soldier encampment. The Chinese have forbidden any fishing or boating on the lake due to conservation commitments, but our guide informed us that occasionally North Korean soldiers will venture with a boat for fishing in the lake. There are clearly opportunities to further develop this unique site as a transboundary reserve with North Korea. In 2024, the volcano was also designated a Global Geopark by UNESCO and the DPRK has boasted about this designation.
As President Trump considers ways to reengage with North Korea, he might consider environmental cooperation as a way to open a new opportunity for dialogue. Although the president is not keen to show any 'green stripes', his son Donald Jr. has a passion for wild spaces, albeit for hunting and fishing. Don Jr. has even favored some conservation stances against mining to maintain habitat in Alaska. The Changbaishan region is at the southern edge of the habitat for the largest tiger species in the world, the Amur or Siberian Tiger which is critically endangered with less than 500 individuals remaining in the wild. Conservation and wildlife tourism efforts around natural areas may be a new conversation starter between the Trump and Kim families.
Yanji is near the tri-border region between Russia, China and the DPRK. An estimated 2 million ethnic Koreans are citizens of China, particularly in the border region. Around 400,000 live in the Yanbian 'Korean autonomous district' in China which has some modest level of autonomy from the Chinese government. These Korean-Chinese use their multiple identities across the border by trading in the North Korean Rason Special Economic Zone (earlier called Ragin Sonbong). Many of them also have ties to South Korea for commerce and can be given a resident permit in South Korea if so desired. The Rason special economic zone is a sort of 'economic peace park' similar to the Kaesong Industrial complex near the DPRK's side of the DMZ, where 123 mid-level South Korean companies employ around 53,000 North Korean workers (set up in 2002 as a peace gesture by the South). Yet unlike Kaesong, the main economic sector on the Northern frontier is natural products and services – blueberries, vegetables, fish and crustaceans.
No doubt the DPRK feels somewhat nostalgic about a bygone era when China was one of its unwavering allies. The somber towering walls of the DPRK embassy in Beijing reflect this nostalgia where they are punctuated at one juncture by a small photographic exhibit behind a glass case. All the images in this exhibit are from the DPRK's heyday in the 1960s and 1970s when its human development indicators were higher than South Korea and the Cold War had warmed the Sino-Russian axis in its favor. Isolation and paranoia have now driven DPRK into a downward spiral while South Korea (or Republic of Korea - ROK) can boast being the only country in the world to rise from least developed to most developed status within a generation.
Ever since the Korean War ended in a stalemate in 1953, the peninsula has been divided by a the most heavily mined 'Demilitarized Zone' (DMZ) in the world – a narrow corridor that is on average 2.5 miles wide and stretches across the full 160 plus miles of the border. Some years earlier architecture students of architect Yehre Suh, who was then teaching a design studio at Cornell University, visited the DMZ region with support from the Rotch Foundation and designed scenarios for how to green the DMZ through futuristic studio projects under the caption of 'parallel utopias.' One could envisage both a unified Korea as well as two separate nations but with peaceful relations as alternate but equally desirable outcomes from a detente. This zone has by default become a wild and natural place free from human presence where nature has reclaimed territory and was even profiled by Alan Weisman in his book The World Without Us.
To add greater complexity, but possibly another cooperative nexus, Russia also shares a tri-border in this region with China and North Korea. A rail link between the Russian town of Khasan and the port at Rajin in DPRK was completed in 2013 and there is growing commerce between the two countries. Pondering new pathways to 'creative diplomacy' (a term coined by former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd), Russia might provide a window for peace-building through economic and ecological pathways in the region. The relationship between Russia and DPRK is still strong as exemplified by the latter's beleaguered airline still flying Russian planes, including the latest version of the Tupolev TU 204. Russia has also been remarkably active on various environmental treaties in which the DPRK has also shown some surprising interest. Research by Dr. Benjamin Habib at La Trobe University in Australia and Dr. Robert Winstanley-Chesters from Leeds University documents this surprising engagement by the DPRK, particularly around climate change diplomacy. The International Crane Foundation has also found willing partners in DPRK and Russia for its activities related to conservation habitat.
At China's very farthest limits, a town sandwiched between North Korea and Russia stands at the ... More heart of Beijing's plan to revitalise its bleak, frigid northeastern rustbelt. AFP PHOTO / Greg BAKER
Russia has been a participant in the 'Six Party Talks' and as efforts are made to revitalize these negotiations might it be opportune to hold a summit in this economically and ecologically valuable triborder region between DPRK, China and Russia? It would also be appropriate to expand the mandate of the talks beyond the nuclear issue in order to augment potential for trust and mechanisms for 'creative diplomacy' to emerge. With the conflagration in Ukraine hurting its ties with the 'West,' Russia may find it appealing to play a more constructive role in the hitherto intractable Korean conflict. During the visit to Yanji, I also was able to visit the triborder region after various security checks. On the Chinese side, there is a large museum complex and tourist village that has been developed within the past year. A beautifully curated boardwalk takes visitors through the riparian marshlands to the triborder itself. There are signs in Korean, Russian and Chinese about the natural heritage and value of this unique landscape where the Tumen River Flows into Sea of Japan.
For the past twenty years I have served on the board of an organization called The DMZ Forum. Founded by Korean-American Professor K.C. Kim, an eminent retired entomologist from Pennsylvania State University, the organization aimed to use environmental factors to build 'superordinate goals' for cooperation between both Koreas. Professor Kim had visited North Korea and met with academics at the Wonsan Agricultural and Forestry University and learned of their great need to have more foreign academics visit for research collaborations. Such academic collaborations were not contradictory to the North Korean credo of Juche (self-reliance) but rather a means of furthering the resilience capacity of the country's ecological system which inherently transcends borders.
Within the Korean peninsula several projects have been proposed through the activities of the Forum such as setting up a peace park in the DMZ given its high level of biodiversity or having it declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site by both countries. Conferences and Track 2 Diplomacy efforts have been occurring in this vein for many years. Even philanthropists like Ted Turner have granted celebrity appeal to such undertakings by making visits to the DPRK. The One Green Korea Movement (a church-based organization which has approval for its activities from the North Korean government) has been undertaking tree-planting campaigns across the country. Yet a definitive outcome by which such 'low green politics' could be elevated to the high politics of war and peace remains elusive. Decades of advocacy for transforming the DMZ into a naturalized peace zone has been well-documented by anthropologist Eleana Kim in her book Making Peace with Nature.
Another approach to using environmental pathways for thawing North Korea may be through the existing United Nations treaty obligations which the country has made of its own accord. Some years back, environmental governance scholar Rakhyun Kim and I analyzed all the environmental treaties which North Korea had ratified and suggested some pathways forward in this context. North Korea has shown interest in joining environmental treaties as recently as May of this year when The Ramsar Convention on Wetland protection announced that the DPRK had ratified the treaty. Furthermore, one of the sites that North Korea wants designated as a Ramsar wetland site is near the tri-border region and the treaty has a special provision for such transboundary sites. With such a long history of environmental engagement and this recent overture from the DPRK, the timing may well be opportune for the United States and its allies to use environmental and science diplomacy channels to thaw relations with the DPRK.