- 36.69 million trees planted over 10 years... Expected environmental and social benefits include mitigating urban heat islands and reducing fine dust -

Incheon Metropolitan City (Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok) has been promoting the ‘New Green City 30 Million Tree Planting’ project since 2016, aiming to create a pleasant and livable green city.

At the time, Incheon's population was 2.98 million, approaching 3 million. The plan was established to plant 30 million trees over 10 years, aiming for one tree per person.

This decade-long project had already achieved its overall target of 30 million trees by the end of 2024. By 2025, a total of 36.69 million trees were planted, exceeding the target by 122%.

This tree-planting initiative is a mid-to-long-term greening project aimed at addressing the climate crisis, expanding urban green spaces, and improving citizens' quality of life. Systematic tree planting was carried out across the entire city, including parks, streets, and residential green areas. Key factors contributing to this success included the creation of urban parks and neighborhood forests, the expansion of street trees and green networks, the utilization of vacant and underutilized spaces, and public-private partnership tree-planting campaigns. Citizen-participation planting events and the voluntary involvement of companies and organizations also played a significant role in achieving the project's goals.

Exceeding the project's goals yielded not only environmental benefits like mitigating the urban heat island effect, reducing fine dust, and enhancing biodiversity, but also social benefits such as improved green space accessibility and the creation of pleasant urban landscapes. The continuous expansion of green space areas in key residential zones has also significantly increased citizens' sense of satisfaction.

Ha Cheol-jong, head of the city's Green Space Policy Division, stated, “The 30 Million Tree Planting Project holds great significance as it improved the city's overall green infrastructure beyond mere quantitative expansion.” He added, “Building on this success, we plan to continue tree planting initiatives, advance urban forest management focused on strengthening carbon sink functions, and implement green space policies linked to carbon neutrality strategies.”