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The founder of Worldwatch Institute, a private U.S. environment research institute, and the president of the Earth Policy Institute, Lester Brown, have cited South Korea as world success story of forest rehabilitation. Under the leadership of president Park Chung-hee, hundreds and thousands of people from each village engaged in anti-erosion work and planted trees to restore denuded forests, Brown says in his book, "Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble."
The country's growing stock volume per ha in 1952 stood at 5.6 §©, merely 1/14 of the present. The entire country suffered floods and landslides whenever rain fell in any quantity.
It was in the 1960s and 70s that the entire nation planted trees on degraded forests. The Korea Forest Service, the country's forest authority, was founded in 1967. No fewer than 1.4 billion saplings were planted that year alone. Trees planted in the country last year numbered 51.71 million. Since 1964 briquettes were supplied in 35 major cities in the country. With fireplaces renovated, firewood was replaced by briquettes.
In Youngil County, North Gyeongsang Province, for example, 3.6 million-man-days were mobilized for anti-erosion and reforestation projects over five years since the 10-year National Greening Campaign was launched in 1973. They laid 22 million sods, built terraces with 2.3 million stones and planted 24 million saplings. During the tree planting period in those years, civil servants, students and villagers planted saplings on hills and reported the number of the pine caterpillars they caught. If we go hiking in the mountains near Seoul, we can still see the terraces hidden in dense forests. Built with stones and mud, they are the marks of anti-erosion work. We enjoy hiking through the forests our parents and elder siblings planted.
President Park Chung-Hee, observing the thick forests in West Germany when he visited there in 1964, is said to have pledged to himself, "I won't visit Europe again until our mountains are reforested." The president¡¯s tenacity of purpose created South Korea's solid ecological infrastructure. Is there anyone among our current leaders, who are so fond of bashing Park, who would plant a single sapling for a benefit the nation will not reap until three or four decades hence?
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