South Korean Cultural Ecology - 1905 to 1990
Part 4 - Pollution and the Future -- Page 26

A. Environmental Destruction

The countryside was plunged into ruin by sacrificing agriculture on the altar of an export-oriented society. At the same time, the environment has been devastated by the quiet assumption that some environmental destruction is simply the price of economic growth. If and when we have succeeded, we then will go back to clean things up. One of the major questions is how much is that some? In August of 1989, the government admitted that a substantial amount of the country's tap water is contaminated with heavy metal. The price of an environmental reversal may be a radical reversal of some of the past economic policies.

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