대흥란의 이식 가능성 실험에 대한 비판적 검토 - 거제도 노자산 남부관광단지 조성사업에 대한 환경영향평가의 사례 -

초록

After reviewing the environmental impact assessment report for the Southern Tourism Complex development project, including a large-scale golf course being pursued in the Noza Mountain area of Geoje City, Gyeongnam Province, the Ministry of Environment announced its conditional agreement in June 2023. The condition stipulated that after conducting a pilot transplant of the endangered species, the Daeheung orchid, within the planned development site, the developer must monitor its survival for at least two years. Only if the transplant is deemed viable may the developer proceed with transplanting the remaining Daeheung orchids and then develop Noza Mountain. This study critically reviewed the aforementioned Daeheung orchid transplant feasibility experiment from a third-party perspective. To this end, this study first examined whether the objective of transplanting Daeheung orchid was justified in light of international organizations' recommendations on plant transplantation; second, compared the procedures of the Daeheung orchid transplant experiment with those of previous transplant experiments involving other plant species to assess whether the procedures were sufficient to prove transplant feasibility; and third, examined whether the transplantation was successful by observing the flowering status of the transplanted Daeheung orchids at the Noza Mountain site where the transplantation experiment is being conducted, up until October 2025. The review concluded that the aforementioned transplantation experiment did not meet the target conditions for wildlife transplantation recommended by international organizations. Furthermore, its procedures were found to be insufficient compared to experiments previously conducted by biologists to assess transplant viability. Additionally, the flowering rate of Daeheung orchids through transplantation experiments to date is estimated to be as low as approximately 2.4%. This experiment was therefore deemed insufficient to prove the transplant viability of Daeheung orchids. The low flowering rate of Daeheung orchids is to be expected. Daeheung orchids are sensitive and demanding plants, influenced by numerous factors: site conditions such as effective soil depth, litter layer depth, temperature, and humidity; soil conditions including soil moisture content, soil organic matter content, and exchangeable cation content; and even vegetation structure and symbiotic relationships. It is unreasonable to judge the success of transplantation based on such a short-term experiment. Should the relocation of the Daeheung orchid and the construction of the Noza Mt. Golf Course be permitted based on such experiments and their evaluation results, the likelihood of the 230 clumps of endangered Daeheung orchids surviving sustainably after relocation is extremely low.

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