[Photo] Terrace rice paddies in Namhae are being threatened by depopulation

An aerial view of Daraengi Village (Park Jong-shik/The Hankyoreh)

Terrace rice paddies form the curves of nature along the silhouette of hills and mountains. Unlike traditional rice paddies that remind one of grids, terrace rice paddies remind one of the sea waves hitting the shore. They are a testament to the human race’s effort to conquer the natural landscape and bend its limitations to serve human interests.

Those paddies include the terrace rice paddies at Daraengi Village in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province. Getting its name from the local dialect word for “a long and narrow rice paddy,” the village boasts South Korea’s most beautiful rice paddies, straight up some of Korea’s best scenery. Situated in between the mountains Seolheul and Eungbong, the village, in its entirety, looks out on the ocean.

A good portion of the rice paddies Daraengi Village used to boast have now been turned into crop fields or abandoned and run over by weeds. (Park Jong-shik/The Hankyoreh)

Daraengi Village was selected in 2002 as one of the villages that have preserved their natural ecology and designated Scenic Site No. 15 by Korea’s Cultural Heritage Administration. CNN also listed the village in its list of “50 beautiful places to visit in South Korea.”

A rice paddy is abandoned at Daraengi Village in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province. (Park Jong-shik/The Hankyoreh)

However, a good portion of the rice paddies Daraengi Village used to boast have now been turned into crop fields or abandoned and run over by weeds.

Depopulation has been at the center of this change. With fewer people to tend to the rice paddies, an increasing number of the paddies are being left unattended. Kim Hyo-yong, the village head, said, “It’s difficult to protect terrace rice paddies as more than half of the village’s population are older than 65.”

“We urgently need government programs [to support the village],” Kim said.

The village’s residents have founded the Terrace Rice Paddy Preservation Society to protect Daraengi Village as a natural heritage.

It’s not just in Daraengi Village where terrace rice paddies are on the decline. Many terrace rice paddy farmers have given up cultivating their paddies in other parts of South Gyeongsang Province from Miryang to Sancheong, all due to depopulation.

A terrace rice paddy in Haman County, South Gyeongsang Province, that is currently being cultivated for the “Terrace Rice Paddy Guardian Project” (Park Jong-shik/The Hankyoreh)

South Gyeongsang Province has implemented the “Terrace Rice Paddy Guardian Project” to fight this change, selling plots of rice paddies to lifestyle farmers for a share of the year’s harvest in exchange for a small fee and four days of labor each year. The project is open not only to individuals but also to private and public entities.

You can sign up for the project on blog.naver.com/darangnon.

By Park Jong-shik, staff photographer

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