Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes Listed as World Heritage Site

Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes were registered as a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site yesterday.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee held its 31st general meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, on June 27 and affirmed Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes, that include Mountain Halla National Park, Seongsan Sunrise Peak, Manjang Cave and Yongcheon Cave, as a World Heritage site as requested by South Korea.

This is the first time that a natural heritage site of Korea has been registered as a World Heritage site. Seven cultural heritage sites of Korea, such as Seok-gul-am, Jong-myo and Suwon Fortress, have been listed as World Heritage sites.

World Heritage is a project promoted by UNESCO to jointly protect “natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from an aesthetic or scientific point of view; geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation; and natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.”

The newly registered World Heritage site of Jeju Island includes Mountain Halla Natural Reserve, the tuff ring of Seongsan Sunrise Peak, the Geo-mun-o-reum Lava Tubes network, which is divided into the Geo-mun-o-reum, Beng-dwi Cave, Manjang Cave, Gimnyeong Cave, Yongcheon Cave, and the Dangcheomul Cave. Jeju Island was acknowledged as a World Heritage site since it contains a parasitic volcano, a world-level scale lava cave, and areas inhabited by endangered species.

When the news spread that Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes had been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in Korea, Jeju Island officials were beaming, as they now have a chance to revive the region’s tourism industry.

Jeju Island plans to hold a big party on July 2, which is also the first anniversary of its establishment as a special autonomous region.

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