ULSAN — Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant has led the restoration of native ecosystems along the Taehwa River for more than two decades since 2005, pairing species releases with habitat construction rather than simply releasing animals into the wild. The core of the approach has been building ground where organisms can survive on their own — planting host plants first and introducing symbiotic species alongside them.
Hyundai Motor's ecological restoration began in 2005, when Ulsan City declared its "Ecopolis Ulsan" initiative, according to the company's Ulsan plant and local environmental groups on the 5th. At the time, the two sides launched a joint restoration project for the Sericinus montela, a native swallowtail butterfly that had disappeared from the Taehwa River area because of pollution. Ulsan City provided the restoration site, while a butterfly specialist in the environmental department of Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant supplied restoration and breeding expertise, creating a cooperative framework.
The key was building the habitat foundation first. Before releasing about 400 artificially bred adult butterflies in July 2005, the plant planted roughly 1,500 Dutchman's pipe vines — the only food plant for the caterpillars — at the planned restoration site a month earlier, in June. The preemptive step reflected the ecological reality that released adults cannot reproduce and will die out if there is nothing for the larvae to feed on.
The project later expanded to additional habitat bases and education infrastructure. After building a 700-square-meter butterfly ecological learning center at the Ulsan Wildflower Learning Center in 2009, the company invested 200 million won in 2011 to create a 1,500-square-meter butterfly ecological park at Taehwa River Grand Park and donated it to Ulsan City. The park was planted with about 7,000 larval host plants, including Dutchman's pipe, Japanese bay tree, Sichuan pepper and trifoliate orange, and equipped with a circular dome and observation trails. It became an ecological base where four species — the Sericinus montela, the common bluebottle, the Chinese windmill butterfly and the Asian swallowtail — breed and settle in natural conditions.
Aquatic restoration also proceeded by rebuilding food chains and symbiotic relationships between species. Native species such as the Asian paddle crab and the oily bitterling had declined sharply along the Taehwa River as pollution worsened after the Ulsan industrial complex was built in 1962.
As water quality began to recover, the Ulsan plant released 10,000 juvenile Asian paddle crabs in 2007 along the southern bank of the Taehwa River bamboo forest ecological park, where the crabs act as scavengers that clean organic matter from the riverbed. Follow-up monitoring a year later confirmed the crabs had grown to 4 to 5 centimeters across the shell and had established stable habitat in crevices among waterside rocks.
In 2008, the plant released 10,000 oily bitterling — a species endemic to Korea and the Taehwa River's flagship species — along with 10,000 Asian paddle crabs. At the same time, it introduced about 300 freshwater mussels, a species essential to the fish's spawning and reproduction. The oily bitterling lays its eggs by inserting an ovipositor into a living mussel, while mussel larvae attach to the fish's fins to grow, forming a mutual symbiosis. The restoration method accounted for the ecological chain in which the oily bitterling cannot reproduce unless mussels live alongside it. The Ulsan plant recently released an additional 300 oily bitterling and about 300 freshwater mussels, while also conducting a survey of major freshwater fish habitats along the Taehwa River.
The restoration work has expanded beyond the main river to the whole of Ulsan. The plant has worked to protect the Korean sticklebacks in the Cheokgwa Stream, a tributary, and to remove harmful plants, while supporting the conservation of city-designated protected wild species such as the dark chub, the Korean spotted minnow and the Korean sharpbelly. It has also pursued protection of the long-billed plover, a Class II endangered wild species, and wintering vultures, as well as conservation activities at the Taehwa River migratory bird site linked to the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP). It has made plogging a regular activity at major coastal areas including Ilsan, Gangdong and Jeongja.
In May this year, Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant held a signing ceremony for an environmental social contribution agreement at the Taehwa River Conservation Association's office and donated 60 million won in social contribution funds to support local biodiversity conservation and resource recycling.
"Rather than simply putting organisms in the water or letting them loose, we have focused on creating a sustainable environment where they can take root on their own, by planting host plants and pairing them with symbiotic species," an official at Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant said. "We will continue working with the local community to protect Ulsan's healthy ecosystem."
