Since recreation is the activity of stimulating energy and desire through rest and amusement, it should be chosen based on individual desire and interest in order to be pleasant and rewarding. Therefore, individuals try to effectively recover from fatigue, foster emotions, and satisfy desires while society seek after valuable activities contributing to unity and friendship among members, and improvement in efficiency of work through recreation.
What is the natural recreation forest?
Visit a recreation forest when you feel like a valley with a stream, cozy log-house, an out-of-the way forest path. The "recreation forest" is created to contribute to rise in income of mountain owners and play a role as a park for nature education. At the same time, it provides outdoor recreation facilities for health and recreation by installing recreation facilities and regularly maintaining forests.
Background and purpose
Mountains and forests take up 65% of our land. They had been devastated due to Japanese exploitation and the Korean War. But we achieved the afforestation with the help of the policy of conservation of forests and afforestation since 1970 and our great deal of efforts. Finally all the people can now enjoy luxuriant forests and the benefits of nature.
And also, by improvement of living standards and urbanization along with rapid growth of national economy, people perceive forests more as providing recreation that can purify air, making good sources of streams, and enabling us to cope with stress rather than as producing lumber in the past.
And especially, as demand of recreation increases, we started to create a variety of recreation facilities such as natural recreation forest, forest bath park, forest training center etc. starting from Daegwallyeong natural recreation forest in late 1980's. Now we are equipped with full-scale systems to activate recreation forests by setting up legal and systematical measures, for instance, reorganizing forest act in 1990.
Forest recreation and culture facilities
There are natural recreation forest, forest bath park, forest museum, and an arboretum as forest recreation and culture facilities.
Natural recreation forest has been created as environmentally-friendly as possible. It provides people with opportunity of healthy recreation and increases in income of mountain owners and residents around while regularly maintaining forests.
Forest bath park is 10ha of forests in the suburbs of cities, allowing people to easily access and take advantage of it as a comfortable resting place. It serves convenient facilities like walks, simple sports facilities, nature study fields and so on.
Forest museum has been established for education, academic study, and promotion of forest culture through permanent conservation and display of historic records of forests.
Arboretum has been created to conserve and multiply genetic resources of rare plants and native species of trees and provide nature study fields.
These forest recreation and culture facilities help people enjoy the benefits of forests and make people appreciate the importance and the value of forests.
Forest recreation activities
There are slight differences between general holiday resorts and recreation facilities which provides recreation activities with basic facilities. A holiday resort is a place for amusing oneself and having fun while a recreation facility is for resting and training bodies and minds.
Forests are the natural place to allow such activities. Forests are attractive as recreation facilities because there is a variety of scenery in tranquility. The forest is the heart of all the recreation resources.
The kinds of recreation activities available in the forest are typically walks in the forest, forest bath. Nature experience learning in nature observation field and forest expedition path, body and mind training through camping and hiking, and meditation in the forest etc. are also available. Nowadays a variety of leisure and sporting events are held such as paragliding, mountain biking, rafting etc.