Update on NZ Civil Society Activities in DPRK

Despite a freezing of diplomatic relations and militaristic official statements from the NZ government which exacerbate rather than pour oil on troubled waters, relations between New Zealand and the DPRK continue to be active at civil society level.

This Month

A team of four from the Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre ( http://www.miranda-shorebird.org.nz/ ) are currently in DPRK working with staff from the Natural Conservation union of the DPRK (NCUK). For the first few days they are operating on mudflats near Nampo where they are banding birds that have migrated from Australia and New Zealand. From there they will move North where they will survey and count migratory birds which have stopped on their journey for a feed.

Next Month

Roger Shepherd (http://www.hikekorea.com/ ) will spend between three weeks in the North East of DPRK undertaking an ambitious programme of scaling and photographing 14 mountains along a 100 km section of the Baekdu Daegan, the mountainous spine which runs the entire length of the Korean Peninsula from Mt. Paektu in the North to Mt. Jirisan in the South. Later in the year he will be holding an exhibition of the photos taken in both DPRK and the ROK.

September

Stuart Vogel and Richard Lawrence will visit to undertake quite an ambitious programme which will include:
• A visit to the NZ Friendship School
• A visit to the NZ Friendship Farm
• A visit to the Korea Christian Federation and the Bongsu Bakery
• Meeting with High School teachers who visited NZ in 2012
• Meeting with Scholars who studied at Wintec in 2014
The major objective will be to obtain feedback about previous projects from each of these parties which can help in planning and implementing future people’s diplomacy projects.

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