Forest Bio Innovation Growth Base..."Creating Industrial High Value Added"

[Anchor]
Forest healing, which is emerging these days, is also of great value as an industrial resource.

A 'forest bio-innovation growth base complex' has entered Naju, Jeollanam-do,

We are interested in whether it will be the center of creating new industrial value of forest resources in the next 100 years.

Reporter Kim Bum-hwan reports.

[Reporter]
It is the Jeonnam Forest Research Institute with a 102-year history.

The forests of the Jeonnam Forest Research Institute are widely known as one of the top 100 luxury forests in Korea.

As you can see, you can enjoy the late autumn atmosphere here. Selected by the Korea Tourism Organization as a forest worth visiting this month, it has established itself as a representative healing spot visited by 300,000 people a year.

On weekends, cars are pushed on the entrance road to inhale "phytoncide" in the luxury forest.

[Kim Kyungwon's mother/daughter/Visitor: It's so nice, the air is so nice.... We live in Bitgaram-dong, and there are mountains and many other things, but this is a 'healing forest'.]

The Korea Forest Research Institute, which is also popular with healing programs, has completed a forest bio-innovation growth base complex that will grow "from 100 years that have been raised and kept to 100 years in the future."

It is a space for overcoming foreign dependence on forest life resource raw materials and securing sovereignty of biological resources following the entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol.

[Oh Deuk-sil / Director of Jeollanam-do Forest Research Institute: By continuing to research and mass production of forest materials required by bio companies, the base complex will be able to serve as a raw material supply platform between companies and forestry companies.]

Along with vaccines from Hwasun-gun and natural products from Jangheung-gun, various research and demonstration facilities are built in the base complex to take charge of the three bio-industry pillars of Jeollanam-do.

It functions as a birthplace that creates high industrial added value and future food by utilizing orchid species rich in Jeollanam-do, such as red thorns and beech trees.

[Kim Young-rok / Governor of Jeollanam-do: We will revitalize this forest bio-material industry, and we will do this so that forest resources and forest recreation can be linked together to create synergy.]

There are about 70 intellectual property rights acquired by the Jeonnam Forest Research Institute, and 55 cases have already been handed over technology to private companies to achieve industrialization.

With the opening of a forest bio-innovation growth base complex, the Jeonnam Forest Research Institute is expected to become a mecca for realizing global forest convergence technology and a virtuous cycle of forest management.

I'm Kim Bum Hwan of YTN.