Further recognition of the international importance of South Korean wetlands comes in late October and November. At the end of October, an international meeting of Anatidae experts will be held at Seosan, while in November a two-person film crew from the BBC's "Planet Earth", will also visit South Korea for 2 weeks. They are likely to be also joined by a camera team from Japan's national NHK television station.
BBC's "Planet Earth" production team selected South Korean wetlands as a filming location specifically for the wintering Baikal Teal Anas formosa that they support. Their famed evening flights are increasingly widely recognized as a world-class wildlife spectacle, an aerial ballet in which tens, even hundreds, of thousands of birds take part.
The Baikal Teal sequences, to be filmed at Seosan, Gunsan and probably also in the Haenam area (with thanks to Seosan and Gunsan Cities for already providing permission to film), will, it is intended, be used in the opening program of the upcoming series of "Planet Earth" - to be broadcast sometime in late 2005 or 2006. The series will highlight several migratory species - especially those dependent upon water, and especially those that gather in spectacular concentrations: the most impressive wonders of the natural world.
The "Planet Earth" team, guided in South Korea by Birds Korea's Nial Moores, comprises award-winning cameraman Barrie Britton (who has accrued many credits over 17 years of work, including work on David Attenborough's "Life of Birds" Series), and BBC Researcher Emma Rolfe, with 6 years of experience of BBC film shoots spanning Africa, North America and Europe.
Birds Korea will do everything we can to ensure every success for the BBC's visit and film project: a project that will continue to show to the world the value and spectacle of South Korea's internationally important wetlands.