Ex-S. Korean diplomat named U.N.'s green ambassador

BERLIN, Dec. 4 (Yonhap) -- A former South Korean ambassador to China, Kwon
Byong-hyon, was appointed Friday as a U.N. envoy for the global fight against
desertification.

Kwon received a letter of assignment from Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of
the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) at the secretariat in Bonn
for the post, officially titled "Sustainable Land Management (SLM)
Champion-cum-Green Ambassador."
The UNCCD, adopted in 1994, is a major environment-related convention of the U.N.
for tackling desertification around the world.
Kwon is tasked with conducting various activities to publicize the threat of
desertification and call for a resolution for two years.
He has dedicated himself to forestation projects since 1998, while serving as
Seoul's top envoy in Beijing, noting the fact that yellow dust on the Korean
Peninsula stems from the desertification of some areas in China.
"Desertification is a very serious problem like global warming," Kwon said. "I
will do my best to enhance public awareness on the danger of the land worldwide,
as I did for the last ten years."
He set up a Korea-China youth cultural association, Future Forest, in 2001 as a
campaign to plant trees in desert.
The southern South Korean city of Changwon is scheduled to host the 10th
conference of the UNCCD in 2011.
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