Meeting with Dr. Lee Chang-Jae, the new president of the National Institute of Forest Sciences (NIFOS), formerly known as Korea Forest Research Institute (KFRI). KFRI has been our partner for a long time to cooperate for sustainable forestry in Korea, in particular also the reforestation in North Korea.

As part of the Creative Core programme of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies to strengthen humanities in HUFS, Dr. Bernhard Seliger of Hanns-Seidel-Foundation Korea gave a special lecture on European climate change policy and the Korean Peninsula. In particular, he looked at the experience of HSF with projects on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and biodiversity in North Korea.

The Hanns Seidel Foundation has been active in South Korea since 1987 and in North Korea since 2003. From the very beginning its engagement aimed at the development of rural areas. Since 2005 the main focus became sustainable development in the inter-Korean border areas, based on German experiences in the former border between East and West Germany.

A new edition of the magazine “The Unified Korea”, which deals with topics concerning Korean unification, has been published by the Institute for Peace Affairs, a long-standing partner of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Korea.

With the beginning of the year 2017 a “Calendar on Migratory Birds” was published in DPR Korea with the support of Hanns Seidel Foundation Korea. The calendar includes pictures of migratory birds common in the DPR Korea and information on tide levels for each day of the year.

The Hanns Seidel Foundation Korea works since several years on environmental issues in North Korea and tries to promote inner-Korean exchange, especially in the field of forestry. In the last 25 years, around 40 percent of the forest cover in North Korea disappeared. While there is now a shift towards a better understanding of the significance of healthy forests, there is still a lack of expertise of decision-makers and scientific knowledge.

A new issue of the magazine "THE GLOBAL CITIZEN", which is dealing with political, cultural and social issues, has been published.