As Climate Warms, S. Korea Fights New Border Threat: Malarial Mosquitoes 

In this picture taken on July 30, 2024, a solar wind and mosquito monitoring device (C) used by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) is seen between two photos, taken during the Korean War and on display at the Dorasan Peace Park, in Paju, near the heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea. (AFP)
In this picture taken on July 30, 2024, a solar wind and mosquito monitoring device (C) used by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) is seen between two photos, taken during the Korean War and on display at the Dorasan Peace Park, in Paju, near the heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea. (AFP)
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As Climate Warms, S. Korea Fights New Border Threat: Malarial Mosquitoes 

In this picture taken on July 30, 2024, a solar wind and mosquito monitoring device (C) used by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) is seen between two photos, taken during the Korean War and on display at the Dorasan Peace Park, in Paju, near the heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea. (AFP)
In this picture taken on July 30, 2024, a solar wind and mosquito monitoring device (C) used by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) is seen between two photos, taken during the Korean War and on display at the Dorasan Peace Park, in Paju, near the heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea. (AFP)

Near the heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea, a monitoring device is working 24-7 -- not tracking missiles or troop movements, but catching malaria-carrying mosquitoes that may cross the border.

Despite its advanced healthcare service and decades of determined efforts, achieving "malaria-free" status has remained elusive for South Korea, largely thanks to its proximity to the isolated North, where the disease is prevalent.

The South issued a nationwide malaria warning this year, and scientists say climate change, especially warmer springs and heavier rainfall, could bring more mosquito-borne diseases to the peninsula unless the two Koreas, which remain technically at war, cooperate.

The core issue is the DMZ, a four-kilometer-wide no man's land that runs the full length of the 250-kilometer (155-mile) border.

The demilitarized zone is covered in lush forest and wetlands, and largely unvisited by humans since it was created after the 1953 ceasefire that ended Korean War hostilities.

The heavily mined border barrier area has become an ecological refuge for rare species -- an Asiatic black bear was photographed in 2018 -- and scientists say it is also an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes, including malaria carriers that can fly as far as 12 kilometers.

The DMZ has stagnant water plus "plenty of wild animals that serve as blood sources for mosquitoes to feed on in order to lay their eggs", said Kim Hyun-woo, a staff scientist at Seoul's Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

South Korea once believed it had eradicated malaria, but in 1993 a soldier serving on the DMZ was discovered to have been infected, and the disease has persisted ever since, with cases up nearly 80 percent last year to 747, from 420 in 2022.

"The DMZ is not an area where pest control can be carried out," Kim Dong-gun, an environmental biology professor at Sahmyook University in Seoul, told AFP.

As mosquito populations increase, more malaria carriers are "feeding on soldiers in the border region, leading to a continuous occurrence of malaria cases there", he said.

The South Korean health authorities have installed 76 mosquito-tracking devices nationwide, including in key areas near the DMZ.

- 'Disease republic' -

North of the border, malaria is more widespread, with WHO data indicating nearly 4,500 cases between 2021 and 2022, with the country's extreme poverty and food insecurity likely exacerbating the situation.

"North Korea is a republic of infectious diseases," Choi Jung-hun, a former North Korean doctor who defected in 2011 and now works as a physician in the South, told AFP.

Choi said that even though he lived in the north of the country, he had treated malaria patients, including a North Korean soldier who had been based near the border with the South.

Outdated equipment like old microscopes hampers early and accurate malaria diagnoses, Choi said, while malnutrition and unhygienic water puddles and facilities make residents especially vulnerable to the disease.

The severe flooding that struck the North this summer could make things worse. In Pakistan, catastrophic flooding in 2022 contributed to a fivefold increase in malaria cases year-on-year.

"North Korea continues to rely on outdated communal outdoor toilets. Consequently, when floods occur, fecal water overflows, resulting in the swift spread of (all kinds of) infectious diseases," Choi told AFP.

- 'So painful' -

In the last decade, around 90 percent of South Korea's malaria patients were infected in regions near the DMZ, official figures show -- although rare cases have occurred in other areas.

Shin Seo-a, 36, was diagnosed with malaria in 2022 after being hospitalized with recurring high fevers, but she had not visited a border region that year before getting sick.

"I have no recollection of being bitten by any insects," she told AFP of the period before she became ill.

Doctors initially thought she had a kidney infection and it took around 10 days before she was finally diagnosed with the mosquito-borne disease.

Having malaria felt like "I was being stir-fried on a really hot pan," she told AFP, saying it was so painful that in tears, "I once even begged the nurse to just knock me out."

Malaria on the Korean peninsula is caused by the parasite Plasmodium vivax and is known to be less fatal than tropical malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum, which affects many African countries.

Even so, after contracting malaria Shin developed Nontuberculous mycobacteria, a lung disease that typically affects individuals with a weakened immune system.

"Malaria is a truly terrifying disease," she told AFP, adding that she hoped more could be done to prevent its spread.

But with the nuclear-armed North declaring Seoul its "principal enemy" this year and cutting off contact, as it rejects repeated offers of overseas aid, cooperation on malaria looks unlikely.



Plastics Are Seeping into Farm Fields, Food and Eventually Human Bodies. Can They Be Stopped?

Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)
Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)
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Plastics Are Seeping into Farm Fields, Food and Eventually Human Bodies. Can They Be Stopped?

Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)
Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)

In Uganda's Mbale district, famous for its production of arabica coffee, a plague of plastic bags locally known as buveera is creeping beyond the city.

It's a problem that has long littered the landscape in Kampala, the capital, where buveera are woven into the fabric of daily life. They show up in layers of excavated dirt roads and clog waterways. But now, they can be found in remote areas of farmland, too. Some of the debris includes the thick plastic bags used for planting coffee seeds in nurseries.

Some farmers are complaining, said Wilson Watira, head of a cultural board for the coffee-growing Bamasaba people. “They are concerned – those farmers who know the effects of buveera on the land,” he said.

Around the world, plastics find their way into farm fields. Climate change makes agricultural plastic, already a necessity for many crops, even more unavoidable for some farmers.

Meanwhile, research continues to show that itty-bitty microplastics alter ecosystems and end up in human bodies. Scientists, farmers and consumers all worry about how that's affecting human health, and many seek solutions. But industry experts say it’s difficult to know where plastic ends up or get rid of it completely, even with the best intentions of reuse and recycling programs.

According to a 2021 report on plastics in agriculture by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics. Some studies have estimated that soils are more polluted by microplastics than the oceans.

“These things are being released at such a huge, huge scale that it’s going to require major engineering solutions,” said Sarah Zack, an Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Great Lakes Contaminant Specialist who communicates about microplastics to the public.

Micro-particles of plastic that come from items like clothes, medications and beauty products sometimes appear in fertilizer made from the solid byproducts of wastewater treatment — called biosolids — which can also be smelly and toxic to nearby residents depending on the treatment process used. Some seeds are coated in plastic polymers designed to strategically disintegrate at the right time of the season, used in containers to hold pesticides or stretched over fields to lock in moisture.

But the agriculture industry itself only accounts for a little over three percent of all plastics used globally. About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, including single-use plastic food and beverage containers.

Microplastics, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines as being smaller than five millimeters long, are their largest at about the size of a pencil eraser. Some are much smaller.

Studies have already shown that microplastics can be taken up by plants on land or plankton in the ocean and subsequently eaten by animals or humans. Scientists are still studying the long-term effects of the plastic that's been found in human organs, but early findings suggest possible links to a host of health conditions including heart disease and some cancers.

Despite “significant research gaps,” the evidence related to the land-based food chain “is certainly raising alarm,” said Lev Neretin, environment lead at the FAO, which is currently working on another technical report looking deeper into the problem of microplastic pollution in soils and crops.

A study out this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that microplastics pollution can even impact plants' ability to photosynthesize, the process by which they turn light from the sun into energy. That doesn't “justify excessive concern” but does “underscore food security risks that necessitate scientific attention,” wrote Fei Dang, one of the study's authors.

The use of plastics has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Plastic is ubiquitous. And most of the world's plastic goes to landfills, pollutes the environment or is burned. Less than 10% of plastics are recycled.

At the same time, some farmers are becoming more reliant on plastics to shelter crops from the effects of extreme weather. They're using tarps, hoop houses and other technology to try to control conditions for their crops. And they're depending more on chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers to buffer against unreliable weather and more pervasive pest issues.

“Through global warming, we have less and less arable land to make crops on. But we need more crops. So therefore the demand on agricultural chemicals is increasing,” said Ole Rosgaard, president and CEO of Greif, a company that makes packaging used for industrial agriculture products like pesticides and other chemicals.

Extreme weather, fueled by climate change, also contributes to the breakdown and transport of agricultural plastics. Beating sun can wear on materials over time. And more frequent and intense rainfall events in some areas could drive more plastic particles running into fields and eventually waterways, said Maryam Salehi, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Missouri.

This past winter, leaders from around the world gathered in South Korea to produce the first legally binding global treaty on plastics pollution. They didn't reach an agreement, but the negotiations are scheduled to resume in August.

Neretin said the FAO produced a provisional, voluntary code of conduct on sustainable management of plastics in agriculture. But without a formal treaty in place, most countries don't have a strong incentive to follow it.

“The mood is certainly not cheery, that's for sure,” he said, adding global cooperation “takes time, but the problem does not disappear.”

Without political will, much of the onus falls on companies.

Rosgaard, of Greif, said that his company has worked to make their products recyclable, and that farmers have incentives to return them because they can get paid in exchange. But he added it's sometimes hard to prevent people from just burning the plastic or letting it end up in fields or waterways.

“We just don’t know where they end up all the time,” he said.

Some want to stop the flow of plastic and microplastic waste into ecosystems. Boluwatife Olubusoye, a PhD candidate at the University of Mississippi, is trying to see whether biochar, remains of organic matter and plant waste burned under controlled conditions, can filter out microplastics that run from farm fields into waterways. His early experiments have shown promise.

He said he was motivated by the feeling that there was “never any timely solution in terms of plastic waste" ending up in fields in the first place, especially in developing countries.

Even for farmers who care about plastics in soils, it can be challenging for them to do anything about it. In Uganda, owners of nursery beds cannot afford proper seedling trays, so they resort to cheaply made plastic bags used to germinate seeds, said Jacob Ogola, an independent agronomist there.

Farmers hardest hit by climate change are least able to reduce the presence of cheap plastic waste in soils. That frustrates Innocent Piloya, an agroecology entrepreneur who grows coffee in rural Uganda with her company Ribbo Coffee.

"It's like little farmers fighting plastic manufacturers,” she said.