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Column on Biodiversity

The Golden Toad and the Woodcutter

Jae Chun Choe
Founding President of the National Institute of Ecology, Korea
Co-President of the Climate Change Center

 

There is a well-known Korean folktale called The Fairy and the Woodcutter. The story goes like this:

 

   There once was a poor woodcutter who lived with his mother. One day he saw fairies bathe in a wooded pond and hid a fairy’s winged clothing. Stranded on earth, the fairy became his wife and they had two children together. Content and happy, the woodcutter felt comfortable enough to make a confession to his wife. He showed her the winged clothing. Upon seeing her wings again, she could not help but yearn for home. She decided to return to the heavens, taking the children with her.

 

   Once in my life I too wished to be a woodcutter. It was the summer of 1986. I was conducting a field study of Aztec ants inhabiting the stems of Cecropia trees up in the cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. Upon hearing that the place was where a gorgeous creature called the golden toad (Incilius periglenes) was discovered and named, I wasted no time to head out to look for them. After the countless nights of wandering and searching, I finally ran into a couple dozen of them swimming in a small waterhole deep in the forest. Immediately I hid myself behind a tree buttress and watched them for hours mesmerized in awe.

 

   Jay Savage, a herpetologist at the University of Miami, who first discovered the golden toad and described it as a new species, wrote in his scientific paper that “I must confess that my initial response when I saw them was one of disbelief and suspicion that someone had dipped the examples in enamel paint.” The male brilliant orange in color is a creature out of this world and might as well be the fairy from the heaven. The only problem is that it is the wrong sex. In the following few years I had carried out my research there, I saw them only once more and in 2004 the IUCN declared them gone extinct. It is hard for me to accept it as a fact that such beautiful animals are no longer with me on this planet. Whenever I go to the tropics, however, I still put on my headlight and head out to the forest, hoping to find them hanging around somewhere. Until this day I regret deeply for not having hidden their winged clothing.

 

   Arguably the two most serious environmental threats we face today are climate change and biodiversity depletion. Climate change, recognized as a serious threat to human existence much later than the issue of biodiversity, was a relatively easy problem with regard to making the general public aware of its seriousness. People feel firsthand the unusually extreme weather and utter “I’ve never experienced the weather like this in my entire life.” All what the scientists have to say then is that it is because of climate change happening at a global scale.

 

   Biodiversity crisis, on the other hand, proved to be much harder to convince the general public. Suppose that you are watching the evening news where a reporter tells you that the polar bear is heading fast toward extinction. They used to hunt for seals under water and munch the capture on any iceberg close by. Nowadays, however, too much ice has melted away that they are drown to death while swimming to a nearby iceberg. I doubt that any of us feel good about such a majestic animal like the polar bear disappearing from the Earth. You wonder if there is any way you could help prevent the polar bear from being extinct. After a few seconds later when the news turned to a story of political corruption or the breakup of a famous actress, however, you forget about the polar bear completely. Unless you witness the disappearance of the polar bear or golden toad on your way to school or work, it is very difficult to make you remember the significance of biological extinction.

 

   Currently, I serve as a co-president of the Climate Change Center, established by the Korea’s Green Foundation in 2008 to promote research and education of the importance of climate change. The world leaders often get together but cannot reach a simple agreement to keep the increase of the world temperature less than 2 degree Celsius before the end of this century. As much as I know how serious the impact of climate change could be, I wonder if climate change is of ultimate importance. As a serious scientist I know that this is not exactly what I am supposed to say. Nonetheless, let me spell it out anyway for the sake of discussion. With our ever-advancing technology we may be able to construct a huge indoor facility with a perfect temperature control and make our entire living inside. But what about all those plants and animals not equipped with such technological tools and thus defenselessly exposed to rising temperature? In his critically-acclaimed book, The World Without Us, Alan Weisman outlined how long man-made artifacts would last and how remaining lifeforms would reclaim their presence on Earth. In The Humanity Without Biodiversity, if you will, I wonder how long we the human species would last.

 

 

   Early on the UN recognized the significance of biodiversity protection and designated the year of 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. Having spent the year and worked hard in earnest, it realized that we still have a long way to go. Thus, the UN went on to set aside the following 10 years, i.e., the years from 2011 to 2020, as the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity. We are passing the halfway point right now. We still have a lot of work to do. Fortunately, much like the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services) was established in 2013. There are three Task Forces—Knowledge & Data TF, Local & Indigenous Knowledge TF, and Capacity Building TF—in the IPBES organization. The National Institute of Ecology (NIE) where I serve as the President runs the Technical Support Unit (TSU) for the K&D TF. In addition, I am currently working as the ‘alternate’ president of CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity). The CBD COP 12 was held in Pyeongchang, Korea, during 27 September~17 October 2013 and the Korean government assumes the presidency until the CBD COP 13 which will be held in Cancún, Mexico, during 4~17 December 2016. Although the NIE is a newly-established institution, it is given huge responsibilities as far as the conservation of world biodiversity is concerned. Having studied under the guidance of Professor E. O. Wilson, Mr. Biodiversity, I will do my part as best as I could.

 

 

 

 

 Profile of Jae Chun Choe

 

Dr. Choe was born in Gangneung, the most mountainous region of Korea near the east coast and studied zoology at Seoul National University. He received his PhD in evolutionary biology from Harvard University under the guidance of Professors Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson. Before returning to Korea in 1994, he worked at Harvard University as full-time lecturer, the University of Michigan as assistant professor, and Junior Fellow at the Michigan Society of Fellows. Between 1994 and 2006 he was a professor of biological sciences at Seoul National University. In 2006 he moved to Ewha Womans University as University Chair Professor to establish a new graduate program in EcoScience. He served as the director of the Ewha Natural History Museum for 7 years and is now serving as the Founding President of the National Institute of Ecology. He has served as the President of Ecological Society of Korea and is now Co-President of the Climate Change Center. With Jane Goodall, he established the Biodiversity Foundation in 2013.

 

Dr. Choe has published more than 100 scientific papers and is currently serving as an associate editor of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology and on editorial board of Evolutionary Psychology, Ecological Research, Journal of Ethology, Frontiers in Behavioral and Evolutionary Biology, and Journal of Insect Behavior. In addition to 6 professional books in English, as a well-known popularizer of science in Korea, he has written or translated more than 30 books in Korean. He writes about nature and culture in his own weekly column of Chosun Daily and gives lectures for the general public. He received numerous awards including John Henry Comstock Award from the Entomological Society of America, the 1st Korea Science Culture Award, the 8th Asian Environmental Award, and the 16th Women’s Movement Award.

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