[One Day Ten Thousand Steps, One Day Thousand Characters] Carbon Neutrality and Saving Uri Mil... Walking with a Purpose

Seoul Nowon-gu, Pohang, Jeonnam Gurye-gun, etc.
Nationwide Walking Campaigns to Welcome the New Year
Various Activities Including Environmental Protection and Millet Sprout Stepping Walking Challenge

Walking campaigns are being held across the country to welcome the New Year. While the simple fact that walking promotes health is reason enough to walk, these campaigns provide goals that participants can work towards together, motivating them to take action. These goals range from carbon neutrality to supporting domestic wheat.

Nowon-gu in Seoul has set the theme for January and February of its year-round "Nowon Citizens' 10 Promises for Action" campaign as "Walk short distances and use bicycles and public transportation." Participants can join by completing one of the actions?using public transportation or bicycles, or walking more than 1,000 steps a day?and then uploading a verification photo to the Nowon Environmental Foundation website.

Nowon-gu has been promoting the "Citizens' 10 Promises for Action" campaign since last year to raise awareness of environmental protection and encourage participation in reducing carbon emissions. Out of a total of 35 rules across five categories, Nowon residents selected 10 through a survey, and experts finalized the list through consultation. Besides the walking theme, other actions include expanding renewable energy, using low-carbon electrical appliances, reducing household electricity consumption, minimizing food and household waste, using reusable shopping bags and tumblers, and practicing thorough waste separation. The Nowon Environmental Foundation updates and presents the action themes every two months. Oh Seung-rok, mayor of Nowon-gu, said, “We expect that the small but consistent actions of Nowon residents will play a significant role in achieving carbon neutrality.”

Pohang City plans to accelerate the creation of a "Green Walking City" that connects all daily activities of citizens within the urban environment through walking. Since 2016, Pohang has developed a total of 670,000 square meters of green space through the Greenway Project and has been running the "20 Million Trees Planting Campaign" with citizens since 2017, planting 18.51 million trees to date.

Starting this year, the city plans to connect the forests it has expanded to create a walkable urban area that links mountains, rivers, and the coastline. First, a green pedestrian path will be established connecting various parts of the city centered around the railway forest, and a pedestrian-focused street called "Green Walk" will be created along Posco-daero, which extends eastward from there.

Gurye-gun in Jeollanam-do walked to protect domestic wheat. Gurye-gun was the birthplace of the domestic wheat revival movement in 1991. As of 2020, the domestic demand for wheat is approximately 2.23 million tons, but domestic wheat production is only 15,000 tons, resulting in a wheat self-sufficiency rate of 0.7%, which is less than half of the 1.8% rate in 2016. Although the government is pursuing policies aiming to achieve a 10% wheat self-sufficiency rate by 2030, the situation remains challenging.

Gurye-gun conducted a walking challenge called "Stepping on Wheat Sprouts" with the entire nation. In winter, farmers used to step on wheat sprouts to help them grow well, which inspired this campaign. Participants joined through the Cashwalk application (app) from the 3rd to the 9th of this month, aiming for 6,000 steps per day over seven days. Rewards were provided for achieving the goal, and the first 50,000 participants to accumulate 30,000 steps received discount coupons for domestic wheat gift sets.

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