After the Korean War (1950-1953), Korea was too busy building its economy up to consider the impact is was having on the environment, it was poor. In 1961 Park Chung-Hee took power and with the Korean peninsula divided into the North and South Korea’s he built a political regime that was based on authority. Park Chung-Hee was not worrying about environmental issues; he had bigger fish to fry: strengthening the South Korean economy. A clean environment was a luxury and could only been focused on if the country was up and running. If the economy failed, there would be no money and no reason to have environmental policies at all: the people would be greater concerned by money than s

After South Korea’s economy was up and running, in February of 2000 South Korea’s environmental ministers (with China and Japan’s environmental ministers) began a study on acid rain and air pollution. From this came a joint environmental data center. South Korea has joined several other organizations that study and support pollution reduction, environmental monitoring, energy efficiency programs and ocean pollution: the Northeast Asian Sub-regional Program of Environmental Cooperation (NEASPEC) and Northwest Pacific Action plan.

Having industries pay to relocate people can be seen as a waste of money. If the government had limits on pollution to protect its land the money could have been better spent elsewhere, although they probably would not have had the money in the first place. In response, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Affairs created the Pollution Control Section (which later became the Pollution control Division) that would coordinate the pollution control functions that had been scattered throughout various administrative agencies beforehand. In the 1970s the government began to establish heavy industry and chemical production in accordance to the second Five-Year plan. They began a movement to modernize the rural areas. During this, period pollution and damages (like red tides in Chinahe Bay in 1972) were spreading across their country.

With Park Chung-Hee’s government, for the first time, the industry sector grew larger and exceeded the agricultural sector. Energy consumption and economic growth increased parallel to each other but the energy efficiency decreased (due to losing electricity as it transformed into heat on the long miles of lines they travelled in going from electrical power house to electrical power house). Energy was important for running factories and the government found ways of transporting it in more efficient process.

Seoul was chosen to host the 1988 Olympic Games which would help further stimulate Korean economy. However in doing so South Korea had to more or less reduce more pollution in its city to be allowed to host the games; the government had a responsibility to protect the people who would be coming. The government tried reducing pollution by supplying oil with lower sulphuric content in 1981 and made vehicle emission standards stricter in 1987. The government also made it mandatory to sup

Some topics in this essay:
South Korea, Park Chung-Hee’s, Five-Year Plans, Declaration Democratization, Preservation Act, Section Pollution, South Korean, South Korea’s, Environmental Agency, Chinahe Bay, south korea, south korea’s, environmental policies, pollution control, five-year plans, land money, electrical power, south korean, public health social, power house, improve quality, health social affairs, south korean government, environment preservation act, 1988 olympic games,