Korea Forest Service and Konyang University Hospital Collaborate to Promote Health and Medical-Linked Forest Welfare Services

Nam Seong-hyun, Administrator of the Korea Forest Service (left), and Bae Jang-ho, Director of Konyang University Hospital (right), are posing for a commemorative photo after signing a memorandum of understanding for "Joint Cooperation in the Fields of Forestry and Health/Medical Care." Photo by Korea Forest Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korea Forest Service is set to promote forest welfare services linked with health and medical care.

On the 19th, the Korea Forest Service announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Konyang University Hospital for "Joint Cooperation in Forest and Health·Medical Fields."

The agreement was made for both institutions to cooperate in providing forest welfare services such as forest healing integrated with health and medical fields to the public, conducting research on medical customized exercise using forest resources and the application of forest healing from a medical perspective, and promoting social contribution and public interest projects.

Through this, both institutions expect to facilitate systematic and long-term research to establish medical and scientific evidence for forest healing, increase interest among health and medical professionals and experts in forest welfare services, and thereby activate forest welfare services.

Forest healing is an activity that utilizes natural elements of the forest environment to boost the human immune system and restore physical and mental health. Recently, due to COVID-19, public interest in healing and recreational culture has increased significantly, leading to a sharp rise in demand for forest healing.

The National Institute of Forest Science has also presented analysis results showing that forest healing programs have positive effects, such as reducing depression (before experience 18.3 → after experience 13.0) and stress hormones (before experience 0.113 → after experience 0.082), and improving cognitive ability in the elderly (before experience 26.6 → after experience 28.0).

Based on these effects, the Korea Forest Service is promoting plans to activate forest healing by integrating it with national health policies such as the National Health Insurance Service’s health lifestyle practice subsidy system and the Central Dementia Center’s dementia prevention and management for the elderly.

Nam Sung-hyun, Administrator of the Korea Forest Service, said, “Taking this MOU with Konyang University Hospital as an opportunity, we will strive to activate ‘health and medical-linked forest welfare’ that combines ‘treatment’ in the health and medical field with ‘healing’ in the forest field.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.