Environmental Movements Against Golf Course Development in Korea since the Late 1980s

Abstract

This paper examines environmental activism against the development of golf courses in Korea from 1980 to 1990. The author demonstrates that golf course development is accelerated by profit-seeking land developers or speculators and that windfall gains resulting from land value increments further the development of golf course. This study shows that in terms of golf course development the state and capitalists have almost the same interests as the developers, and that, farmers, as the victims, have organized an environmental movement against the development. In the course of the movement, the nature of the movement has changed from a reparation one to an environmental one. At the same time, the organizations have grown from the villagewide level to the province-wide level. Despite this development, the organizations at the province-wide level do not work well, and their strategies are not well-developed, resulting in a failure to mobilize. In addition, though the water pollution from golf course development can threaten the life of urban people, citizens of the Seoul metropolitan area have not actively participated in these movements; therefore, coalition between farmers and citizens has been hard to mobilize.