South Chungcheong Province to reopen Geumgang Arboretum with expanded facilities

Geumgang Arboretum, which has served as a premier forest destination in central Korea for more than 30 years, is set to return to the public in an expanded form.

South Chungcheong Province Governor Park Soo-hyun signed a memorandum of understanding with Sejong City Mayor Jo Sang-ho on Wednesday at the lawn plaza of the forest museum at the former main campus of the provincial Forest Resources Research Institute, committing the two sides to jointly reopen and operate Geumgang Arboretum and related facilities.

Cho Cheol-gi, speaker of the South Chungcheong Provincial Assembly, and Yoo In-ho, deputy speaker of the Sejong City Council, also attended the signing ceremony and expressed their support for the project at the legislative level.

The MOU covers cooperation on four areas for the reopened arboretum: staffing, operating costs and facility expenses, revenue management and settlement, and administrative procedures.

The former main campus of the provincial Forest Resources Research Institute, which opened before 1994, spans 269 hectares and includes Geumgang Arboretum, Geumgang Nature Recreation Forest, a forest museum, a tropical greenhouse, an animal village and a tree hospital.

The province formally announced plans to sell the site to a private buyer in July 2024 and closed it at the end of June last year ahead of relocating the institute's main campus to Cheongyang in July.

Following the launch of the ninth directly elected provincial administration, the province reversed course from a sale to a reopening. After completing administrative procedures, functional reorganization and facility inspections and repairs, the arboretum and related facilities will begin welcoming visitors in January next year.

The expanded reopening will make the former site of the provincial Forest Resources Research Institute — owned by the province's 2.2 million residents — available for shared use, with the aim of promoting forest recreation and leisure for people across the Chungcheong region and the country as a whole, as well as preserving and activating forest resources.

Starting Monday, ahead of the Chuseok holiday, the arboretum's outdoor spaces — including the exhibition garden, the loess Meta Trail, walking paths and rest facilities — will be opened to the public free of charge on a temporary basis.

The province plans to open the walking paths and other outdoor areas first, while conducting comprehensive safety inspections covering structural, electrical and fire safety standards before gradually bringing accommodation facilities into operation.

The forest museum will be repurposed as a forest culture and ecology education exhibition center, featuring displays on the province's forest policy, forest ecology, climate change, wildfire prevention and forest products from across the province.

The tropical greenhouse will be converted into a temperate southern-region and Jeju native plant garden focused on climate change adaptation, taking into account its aging infrastructure and overlapping functions with the large greenhouse at the nearby National Sejong Arboretum. It is set to resume operation in January next year.

The animal village will be closed, as the province determined it was not operationally viable given that it must shut down whenever a livestock infectious disease breaks out, and will be converted into a children's forest education and experience facility.

"Geumgang Arboretum is not provincial land or real estate for asset accumulation — it is a precious public asset that South Chungcheong, Sejong and indeed all citizens of the country should enjoy together," Park said.

"Geumgang Arboretum is located in Sejong but owned by South Chungcheong Province — yet when it comes to residents' rest and happiness, there are no boundaries between administrative zones," Park said. "From now on, Sejong and South Chungcheong will jointly provide staff, share operating costs and manage revenue together."

Park added that the province would "carefully manage every remaining step of the preparation process to ensure the reopening in the first half of next year proceeds without a hitch, and will nurture this forest — preserved together by South Chungcheong and Sejong — into a century-long forest for our children's children to enjoy."