□ The Ministry of Environment selected 12 areas across the country out of 54 candidates presented by city and provincial governments across the country and designated them as Ecotourism Areas.  The Gangwon Province fielded 8 candidate areas and 3 of them (Pyeongchang, Yanggu, Inje) were finally selected as Ecotourism Areas, the most in the nation.  
  ○ Introduced in March this year, the Ecotourism Area Designation program select areas with high environmental conservation value and experiential and educational implication for the importance of ecosystem protection to promote the ecotourism development in the areas. 
  ○ Ecotourism is environment friendly way of tourism which provide the experience to learn the importance of the environment through enjoying excellent ecosystem and great natural landscape.    

□ Ecotourism Areas are designated considering ① nature and ecosystem conservation value, ② ecological design of the facilities, ③ understanding the correlation between the environment and the local culture, ④ engagement and cooperation from the local community, ⑤ mid-to-long term conservation and management plan and strategy and ⑥ willingness to promote ecotourism and the cooperative basis.

□ It is expected that the Ecotourism Areas will enjoy the synergy effects including enhanced awareness, income growth from tourism and job creation through support and cooperation from the central government.
  ○ The designated areas are to receive the government support of 150 million won per 3 years from the Ministry of Environment for operational costs to develop ecotourism programs, conduct promotional campaign and ect. 
  ○ Many other financial and operational supports are given to the areas including registration in the ecotourism homepage, right to use official ecotourism logo, supports for the web site and application development. 

□ The Gangwon Province said that it will push for a variety of policies for natural environment protection and sustainable use of the nature while supporting the designated Ecosystem Areas and promote the ecotourism in the province.