Korea Forest Service officials celebrate the launch of a preparation committee for the 15th World Forestry Congress at an office in Daejeon, March 9, 2020. Korea Times file

Korea Forest Service Minister Choi Byeong-am

By Lee Kyung-min

Over 7,000 people from over 110 countries have registered to attend the 15th World Forestry Congress in Seoul scheduled for May, according to the Korea Forest Service (KFS), the event organizer, Tuesday.

They account for over 60 percent of 11,387 people from 115 countries initially expected to join the international event, which is held every six years. Jointly organized by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), this year's event will be held from May 2 to 6 at COEX in southern Seoul.

"A total of 7,017 people have registered as of today," an official with the organizing committee said. "More people will register in the coming weeks."

The soaring number of COVID-19 Omicron variant cases across the country remained a major sticky point for the event, a reason why the committee has allocated a special budget for containment efforts.

"We understand that the safety of the participants is the top priority. The budget will be used to buy infection prevention and control supplies at the venue. We will maintain close cooperation with health authorities, since many attendees are foreigners flying in."

For context, the World Gas Conference Daegu 2022 scheduled for late May is an event that brings together global gas industry officials with business interests, whereas the forestry congress is primarily an academic conference. The committee views the event to have less uncertainty for going ahead due to its academic focus.

"The World Forestry Congress will be mostly about academic discourse and raising awareness about climate change and other environmental issues."

However, soaring oil prices and Omicron are stirring up lingering uncertainties. "Global oil price hikes and the spread of Omicron can lead to requests seeking registration cancellations, negative developments we are monitoring closely."

This year's event theme will be "Building a Green, Healthy and Resilient Future with Forests" and will be available in four languages ― English, French, Spanish and Korean. In addition to academia, there will also be participants from the government, civil and private sectors.

The KFS expects this year's event to bring together global forest stakeholders to review and analyze key challenges facing the sector and ways to address them.

"The congress is a forum for the exchange of views and experiences on all aspects of forests and forestry, leading to the broad recommendations applicable at national and global levels," it said. "It strengthens the role of forests in general in the context of critical environmental, economic and social issues as well as the global sustainable development agenda."