Hyundai Motor Ulsan Plant Leads Efforts to Preserve Taehwagang River Biodiversity, Including Korean Rose Bitterling Restoration

[Financial News, Ulsan—Choi Su-sang] Hyundai Motor Ulsan Plant has continued its two-decade partnership to preserve biodiversity and restore native species around the Taehwagang River.
Hyundai Motor Ulsan Plant said on the 5th that it recently donated KRW 60 million to the Taehwagang Conservation Association and launched biodiversity conservation activities.
This year, employees will take part directly in a youth upcycling program that uses waste collected near Simni Bamboo Grove to make household items. The company will also sequentially remove harmful plants from waterfowl habitats and preserve migratory bird sites.
In particular, the company accelerated aquatic ecosystem restoration last year and this year by releasing an additional 300 Korean rose bitterlings, the flagship species of the Taehwagang River, along with about 300 maljogae mussels, which share a reproductive symbiotic relationship with them.
As of this year, the cumulative funds Hyundai Motor Company has provided to the Taehwagang Conservation Association since 2015 have reached approximately KRW 500 million.
Hyundai Motor Company's ecological conservation efforts began in 2005, when it partnered with Ulsan Metropolitan City to release about 400 Dragon Swallowtails, a species in the swallowtail family that had been disappearing due to pollution. In 2007 and 2008, as the Taehwagang River's water quality recovered, the company released 10,000 Eriocheir japonicus and 10,000 Korean rose bitterlings, respectively, to restore aquatic species.
Hyundai Motor Company's restoration project has drawn attention because it goes beyond simply releasing individual animals and also creates habitats where they can settle. Before releasing the butterflies, the company first planted about 1,500 Northern pipevine plants, their food source. In 2011, it also completed a 1,500-square-meter butterfly ecology center at Taehwagang Grand Park and donated it to Ulsan Metropolitan City.
More recently, the company has expanded its efforts into environmental education for future generations by supporting local youth ecology clubs and using protected wildlife leaflets as elementary school teaching materials.
A Hyundai Motor Ulsan Plant official said, "Growing alongside a healthy local ecosystem represents Hyundai Motor's sustainable growth," adding, "We will work together with the local community to protect biodiversity in Ulsan."
[email protected] Choi Su-sang Reporter