Conservation Strategy Based on Ecological Characteristics of National Parks in Korea

Ecological approach to conservation of Korea's National Parks (KNP) was reviewed. Four hundred twenty five reports on 15 national parks for 80 years (1915~1994) were analyzed in consideration of phytocoenotic information such as flora, plant community and landscape. Total species was recorded as 157 familles, 752 genera, and 2,369 species (64.3% of Korean flora), in which is included only 75 species of the protected plant species designated by the Ministry of EnvironMent. Occurrence patterns of plant species in national parks were quite similar to one another, but those of plant community were rather unique. Seventy-four of 97 plant communities were reported in only one of 15 national parks, which might be regarded as an endemic or local vegetetation type. These facts are far different from actual status of the KNP＇s ecosystem, which indicate that not only original data in previous reports are less informative, but also tools of investigation and description are too subjective, and thus these can never afford to monitor the ecosystem. From the correlation analysis between 10 ecological characteristics, the following results were obtained: (1) the species richness was positively associated with the area of national park, (2) the number of visitors was related to landscape diversity, (3) occurrence of the designated species was closely related to the vegetation diversity. Numerical analysis (cluster analysis and ordination) using dissimilarity ratio by ecological characteristics divided 15 national parks into 4 groups. The first group, composed of national parks of Chirisan, , Sokrisan, Hallasan, , Odaesan, and Sobaeksan, is recognized as the best national parks in terms of ecological conservation values. Nevertheless, they have been faced with the threat of visitor stress. This study will contribute to the establishment of strategy for appropriate conservation and sustainable use of KNP.