[K-BIZ] Asia's Largest Arboretum

South Korea has opened a huge-scale arboretum where visitors are allowed to encounter endangered Siberian tigers.

This botanic garden, called "Baekdudaegan Arboretum" and claimed to be Asia's largest, will play a key role to preserve threatened plants and animals.

The arboretum is located on a mountain range in the country's southeastern county of Bonghwa.

Built on a land site of over 5,000 hectares, the arboretum is also said to be the second largest of its kind in the world.

Two endangered Siberian tigers were unveiled to the public upon the opening of the arboretum. The last Siberian tiger in Korea was hunted in 1921, in the country's southeastern city Gyeongju.

Visitors to the "Tiger Forest", covering an area of 4.8 hectares and surrounded by electric fences, will be able to take a glimpse at two tigers. They are 13-year-old female Hancheong and 7-year-old male Uri released into the wild.

Featuring 27 different garden exhibitions such as a children's garden, a rock garden, and a mirror garden, it is also home to 3.85 million plants of over 2,000 different botanic species.

[Kim Yong-Ha, head of Baekdudaegan National Arboretum]
“The arboretum focuses on collecting and preserving alpine plants. In addition, it will play a key role in securing and preserving the seeds of endangered wild plants worldwide permanently."

In addition, The arboretum houses other facilities such as "Sea Vault", the world's sole repository of wild seed samples, as well as the Forest Environment Institute among others.

Now, here comes Baekdudaegan Arboretum, a completely new concept of botanic complex offering space for exhibitions, studies and healings altogether.