Volunteers form a human chain at the site of the 2007 Taean oil spill to remove the spilled oil. Provided by Chungnam Province
[Asia Economy (Hongseong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The records of the Taean oil spill accident have been registered on the UNESCO Memory of the World Regional Register.
According to Chungnam Province on the 28th, the UNESCO Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Committee (MOWCAP) recently confirmed at the 9th General Assembly held at the Andong International Convention Center in Gyeongbuk that the records of overcoming the Taean oil spill damage would be registered on the Memory of the World Regional Register.
The Taean oil spill accident occurred on December 7, 2007, when a crane vessel belonging to Samsung Heavy Industries collided with the oil tanker Hebei Spirit off the coast of Taean. As a result of this accident, 12,547 kiloliters of oil spilled into the sea off Taean, damaging the ecosystem of the western coast of Chungnam and the local economy.
The records registered on the Memory of the World Regional Register consist of 222,129 materials recorded and produced by the government, local governments, private organizations, and individuals who responded to and overcame the damage after the accident.
By type, the records include 215,240 documents, 5,707 photographs, 1,020 files, 93 oral histories, 61 videos, 4 publications, 3 certificates, and 1 agreement.
The current owners of the records are Chungnam Province, the Ministry of Environment, Taean County, Dangjin City, Daejeon District Court, National Park Research Institute, Army Headquarters, Seosan Taean Environmental Movement Federation, and the Korea Church Volunteer Group, among others.
The records broadly cover ▲‘Accident Response’ such as reports on countermeasure meetings at the time of the accident, daily comprehensive situation logs, and photos of damage ▲‘Oil Spill Cleanup Activities’ including cleanup progress reports and worker attendance logs ▲‘On-site Volunteer Activities’ by over 1.23 million volunteers ▲‘Compensation and Reparation’ such as formation of victim resident groups, damage reports, and lists of payment recipients ▲‘Recovery Activities’ including economic revitalization project plans for the affected areas ▲‘Environmental and Social Restoration’ such as long-term ecosystem impact monitoring and health impact survey questionnaires ▲and international cooperation processes.
The province believes that these records were registered on the Memory of the World Regional Register because they comprehensively cover the entire process from the initial response to the accident to the completion of compensation and reparation, successfully overcoming an environmental disaster.
In particular, it is analyzed that the unprecedented large-scale volunteer cooperation in overcoming the oil spill damage positively influenced the registration.
Taking this registration as an opportunity, the province plans to build a digital archive of the Taean oil spill damage recovery records so that the records can be searched and viewed online in the future.
Meanwhile, the domestic records currently registered on the Memory of the World Regional Register include three items: Korean signboards, the petition of Crown Prince Sado’s village, and the royal palace signboards of the Joseon Dynasty. The Taean oil spill damage recovery records are the fourth registered item.
The international register includes 16 items such as the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, Hunminjeongeum, the Diaries of the Royal Secretariat, the Uigwe of the Joseon Dynasty, the Tripitaka Koreana woodblocks and related woodblocks, Donguibogam, the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement records, the Nanjung Ilgi, the Saemaul Movement records, the Asan Family Search records, the Joseon Tongsinsa records, and the National Debt Repayment Movement records.
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