The workshop served to provide an overview of the project for the ministeries, solicit support for updating the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) with the most up-to-date information on protected areas in Korea, present current progress on reviewing protected areas data in Korea, and act as a discussion session for any issues with the protected areas data.

The workshop consisted of presentations from UNEP-WCMC, IUCN, Korea National Park Service (KNPS) and the ministries on the data they have on protected areas and their current efforts to update the WDPA. The meeting was conducted in Korean.

The discussion session presented several key issues:

• How to assign IUCN categories. It is likely that different ministries will assign these differently. The IUCN guidelines are translated into Korean (thanks to the Korea Protected Areas Forum – KPAF). It was agreed that KPAF should provide guidance and a standard way for assigning the categories.

• Translation of names into English. Translating Korean into English can be done multiple ways, and this can be problematic as it emphasises or does not emphasise certain features. Again KPAF will provide guidance on translation.

• Redundancy. Some of the fields in the WDPA are redundant for the Koreans as the information is the same (i.e. Original Name and Designation in Korea are the same). This should not pose a problem, as the Koreans databases do not need to store both fields in their database.

The reviewers will continue to prepare datasets for updating the WDPA with the kind support of KNPS and the ministries.

• Korean National Workshop Agenda (pdf, 98Kb)
• Introduction Presentation UNEP WCMC (pdf, 5.3Mb)
• WDPA Data Standards and Guidance UNEP WCMC(pdf, 1.8Mb)