Suncheon Mayor Noh Gwan-gyu Proposes Promotion to 'Sanlimcheo' at Korea Forest Service

Published 20 Mar.2023 16:33(KST)

Emphasizing the Need for Organizational Restructuring Based on Experience Hosting the Garden Expo

Suncheon Mayor Noh Gwan-gyu proposed the elevation of the Korea Forest Service to the status of ‘Forest Administration Office’.

On the 17th, through social networking services (SNS), he mentioned, “These days, the Korea Forest Service is extremely popular, to the extent that local governments nationwide are lining up to have their gardens designated as national gardens.”

[Photo by Suncheon City]

Mayor Noh expressed regret over the current Korea Forest Service’s lack of authority and status, as it does not have the right to submit bills nor attend Cabinet meetings, despite its expanding responsibilities such as promoting public health through gardens, realizing carbon neutrality, and establishing a national system for disaster-level wildfire response. He suggested that the current Korea Forest Service should be elevated to the ‘Forest Administration Office.’

First, he emphasized that gardens are directly linked to public health.

People who spend time in gardens at least once a week experience about a 60% reduction in stress occurrences, and activities involving gardening reduce anxiety levels by twice and negative emotions by four times.

He also stated that the most practical way to achieve carbon neutrality is to increase and properly maintain gardens and forests.

This is because the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by trees in forests, gardens, and urban forests is equivalent to the total annual carbon dioxide emissions (45.6 million tons) produced by automobiles.

Furthermore, he stressed that wildfires have become so frequent and large that they can be called climate disasters, and to respond to disaster-level wildfires that threaten citizens’ lives and safety, it is essential to establish a national disaster management system beyond the existing framework.

Suncheon City also expressed its willingness to share its accumulated gardening know-how of over ten years with other local governments, and reiterated the importance of a comprehensive national garden policy and a government organization commensurate with it at this critical time, urging active consideration of reorganizing the government to elevate the Korea Forest Service to the Forest Administration Office.

Through two garden expos, Suncheon has transformed the entire city framework and presented a model for balanced regional development, becoming a new milestone for cities in the Republic of Korea.

In particular, the garden expos have been praised for indicating the direction future cities should take in South Korea, which had been heavily focused on development to the extent of being called a construction republic.

Meanwhile, if the Korea Forest Service is elevated to the Forest Administration Office, it will become a central administrative agency under the Prime Minister, gaining the right to attend and speak at Cabinet meetings and the ability to submit bills through the Prime Minister.