Namwon Mayor Choi Kyung-sik Meets with Korea Forest Service Chief Nam Sung-hyun to Propose National Projects

Published 26 Jul.2023 17:09(KST)

Choi Kyung-sik, former mayor of Namwon City, Jeonbuk, has been focusing on discovering national projects to expand the living population by utilizing Jirisan, which attracts more than one million visitors annually.

The city announced on the 26th that it decided to prioritize the Namwon National Healing Forest Creation Project and the National Jirisan Mountaineering School Construction Project in cooperation with the Western Regional Forest Service, and on the 25th, met with Nam Sung-hyun, the head of the Korea Forest Service, to propose the promotion of these national projects to secure next year's government budget.

Mayor Choi Kyung-sik of Namwon City is explaining the promotion of a national project to Nam Sung-hyun, the head of the Korea Forest Service, on the 25th.
[Photo by Namwon City]

The city judged that the proposed projects have high feasibility as the public interest in the public functions of forests has increased since the spread of COVID-19, and the demand for forest welfare such as forest healing and recreation is growing, aligning with government policies that actively utilize forests as welfare resources.

On that day, Nam Sung-hyun, head of the Korea Forest Service, said, “It is an era where healing and ecotourism using forest resources become tourism assets,” and added, “Forests should be used in a way that provides benefits to residents.”

He continued, “Let us continuously cooperate to ensure that the proposed projects utilizing Namwon’s regional conditions are successfully promoted and that the government and local governments prepare ways to coexist and cooperate in the face of the local extinction crisis.”

Following the Korea Forest Service chief’s active expression of willingness to cooperate, Namwon City’s efforts to reflect these two projects in next year’s government budget are expected to gain momentum.

Mayor Choi Kyung-sik said, “Based on cooperation with the Western Regional Forest Service located in Namwon City, we will utilize Jirisan, which has a pristine natural environment, to overcome the local extinction crisis by expanding not only the settled population but also the living population.”

Meanwhile, to respond to the local extinction crisis and to support the settlement of retirees and young people returning to farming and rural areas, the city actively participated in the joint regional vitality town contest project by seven ministries and was the only city-level unit nationwide to be selected, creating residential spaces and living infrastructure for 78 households in Yongsan-ri, Unbong-eup.

In connection with this, as the Livestock Genetic Resources Testing Center relocates to Hamyang, the city is promoting the influx of local settlers by creating the nation’s largest new middle-aged village using the abandoned land in the Yongsan-ri area of Unbong-eup.