Socio-ecological restoration of cultural forests: The case of the Gyeongju historic areas in South Korea

This study seeks to provide a more holistic understanding of traditional forest management. Focusing on cultural/historical sites, this paper highlights the values attributed to historical and cultural landscapes. To restore traditional landscapes and their values, we identified all of the tree species that are currently present in the Oreung royal tomb grove and Gyerim sacred grove in the city of Gyeongju, located in the southeastern area of the Korean peninsula, and compared this to the historical list of species found in these areas by consulting historical documents and old illustrations. The results revealed that a large number of species not part of the original design are present in both the Oreung royal tomb grove (12.51 %) and the Gyerim sacred grove (33.14 %) of the total trees, respectively. Our findings highlight the importance of conserving culturally important species following traditional management strategies to restore historical/cultural landscapes of the past rather than simply increasing biological diversity. This study offers a more comprehensive understanding of the management of traditional forests by incorporating historical and ecological perspectives and suggests future strategies for the conservation of traditional forests.