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Hardwood forests of maples, oaks, and hornbeams once grew widely across the Central Korean Peninsula before the area was developed for agriculture and other human uses. Today most of these forests remain on mountains and hills, supporting a variety of forest birds and mammals, including fairy pittas, ring-necked pheasants, badgers, weasels, and martens.
Warm, rainy summers and cold, dry winters sustain a variety of tree species in the Central Korean Peninsula. Deciduous trees such as oaks and birches prevail in most remaining forests, with needle-bearing trees found on hilltops and places that have been recently disturbed. In the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea, grasslands and marshes have overtaken abandoned farmland over the last 45 years, attracting a variety of breeding birds and becoming an important stopover site during migrations.
The wildlife of the Central Korean Deciduous Forests is closely related to that of southern Manchuria, central China, and Japan. Black bears, deer, mandarin voles, and even wolves all live in these leafy woods. The white-bellied black woodpecker, native to these forests, has become especially rare because it prefers to nest in holes in old trees in dense primary forests, which are now largely depleted.
Most of the low-lying plains of the Central Korean Peninsula have been converted to agriculture. Hunting has lead to the decline of wolves and crested shelducks, while habitat loss is the primary cause for the decrease in white-bellied black woodpecker populations. For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report. All text by World Wildlife Fund © 2001
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