'Busan Declaration' adopted to protect Yellow Sea tidal flats across borders

The 48th UNESCO World Heritage Committee has officially adopted the "Busan Declaration on Cooperation for the Conservation of Yellow Sea Tidal Flats and Coastal Wetlands" — known as the Yellow Sea Tidal Flat Busan Declaration — calling for a voluntary multinational framework to protect the Yellow Sea's tidal flats, coastal wetlands and migratory birds.

About 100 people attended a seminar Saturday at BEXCO Convention Hall in Busan under the theme "Flying Beyond Borders: Cross-Border Cooperation for Yellow Sea Tidal Flat Conservation along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway." Participants included representatives from international organizations such as UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), domestic local governments and relevant experts.

The Yellow Sea Tidal Flat Busan Declaration was adopted at the event. At its core, the declaration calls for recognizing the Yellow Sea tidal flats as a single ecosystem — building on the expanded inscription of "Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats" — and broadening international cooperation among South Korea, China and North Korea as well as along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF).

The declaration establishes a voluntary, non-binding cooperation framework among participating institutions and relevant parties to protect the Yellow Sea's tidal flats, coastal wetlands and the migratory birds that depend on them, while sharing scientific, technological and management expertise. Though legally non-binding, it recognizes the Yellow Sea's coastal wetlands as a single ecosystem and links existing international frameworks — including the World Heritage Convention, the Ramsar Convention and the EAAF — to establish shared conservation principles. It marks the first time the World Heritage Committee's newly adopted strategic goal of "cooperation" (6C), approved at this session, has been translated into an action plan.

Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, said the second-phase expanded inscription of Korea's tidal flats as a World Heritage site was achieved just five years after the initial inscription in 2021. "Pursuing this expansion to reinforce the value of the tidal flats and deepen understanding of them is exemplary and very much in line with what the World Heritage Committee actively encourages," he said. He added that the coastal wetlands of South Korea, China and North Korea — which recently revised its tentative list — surrounding the Yellow Sea form a global ecological network that goes beyond a migratory bird route. "Strengthening this ecological connectivity not only protects the East Asian-Asia-Pacific migratory flyway but also serves as a powerful tool for peacebuilding, which is at the heart of UNESCO's mission," he said.

The declaration explicitly names as partners not only the World Heritage sites of "Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats" and China's "Migratory Bird Sanctuaries along the Coast of Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf," but also the coastal wetlands on North Korea's tentative list — leaving the door open for a broader international cooperation framework centered on the Yellow Sea ecosystem should North Korea join in the future. With China's second-phase inscription of its Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf migratory bird sanctuaries followed by the expanded inscription of Korea's tidal flats at this session, the World Heritage representation of the Yellow Sea ecological axis is expected to be further strengthened.

Participating institutions agreed to pursue: long-term conservation and joint management of Yellow Sea coastal wetlands; expanded communication and cooperation among countries; joint research, ecological monitoring and data sharing; exchange of World Heritage management experience; cooperation among local governments, communities and heritage managers; and collaboration on additional World Heritage inscriptions. They also plan to establish a joint monitoring system for intertidal habitats and migratory bird populations, and to work together on tidal flat ecology, climate change response, invasive species management and restoration technology development.

With support from UNESCO and the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP), participating institutions agreed to designate technical focal points and hold their first technical coordination meeting within 12 months to set out cooperation tasks and a timeline.

Cultural Heritage Administration Administrator Heo Min said Saturday's seminar was a meaningful occasion for linking Korea's expanded tidal flat inscription, North Korea's tentative list entry and China's Bohai Bay tidal flats into a single framework. "Korea's tidal flats and the Yellow Sea tidal flats are now World Heritage that all people of the world must share and preserve together across borders — a shared cooperative task for which the international community must take joint responsibility," Heo said. "Based on the joint cooperation declaration signed today, we will take our solidarity and cooperation with the international community a step further."