‘Boseong World Tea Expo’ and Promotion of Mudflat Boat Fishing, Traditional Tea Agriculture System Value
Theme: ‘Boseong Where Nature Breathes, Embracing a Millennium Heritage’
Boseong-gun, Jeollanam-do announced that it will hold the ‘2024 National Important Agricultural and Fishery Heritage Festival’ under the theme ‘Boseong where nature breathes, embracing a millennium of heritage!’ for three days from September 6 to September 8 at the Korea Tea Culture Park in Boseong-eup and Jangyang Fishing Village Experience Area in Beolgyo-eup.
This festival is an event to promote the value of ‘Boseong Beolbae Fishery,’ designated as National Important Fishery Heritage No. 2 in 2015, and ‘Boseong Traditional Tea Agricultural System,’ designated as National Important Agricultural Heritage No. 11 in 2018. It will be held together with the 12th ‘Boseong World Tea Expo’ this year.
National Important Agricultural Heritage Boseong Traditional Tea Agriculture Tea Field ［Photo by Boseong-gun］
The main programs of the ‘2024 National Important Agricultural and Fishery Heritage Festival’ include an opening ceremony, an academic seminar attended by members of the FAO GIAHS Secretariat’s World Agricultural Heritage Committee and domestic agricultural and fishery heritage advisory committee members, special agricultural heritage performances, exhibition and sales halls, evaluation and competition contests, and experiential events.
As the first-ever National Important Agricultural and Fishery Heritage Festival, it is expected that family visitors including the MZ generation, infants, and adolescents will increase, as it is an ecological experience festival enjoyed in nature.
The representative content has been prepared so that visitors can fully immerse themselves in the charm of agricultural and fishery heritage in the mudflats and tea fields and have an enjoyable time.
Various programs in five categories and 35 types will be presented, including the Leisure Beolbae Competition and Traditional Beolbae Riding, catching mudflat creatures (cockles, mudskippers, etc.), world tea tasting and the Korea Tea Blending Competition, tea performance contests, Tea Chart Festival, walking the heritage trail to find golden tea leaves, tea making experiences, and tea food experiences.
Kim Cheol-woo, the governor of Boseong-gun, said, “We will do our best to prepare the festival so that people can meet our beautiful agricultural and fishery heritage through exciting play and experiences in the green tea fields and the Beolgyo mudflats, which are a treasure trove of life.” He added, “Through this festival, we hope to re-highlight the value of our traditional culture and history, which have a thousand years of history and excellence, as agricultural and fishery heritage designated and preserved by the nation, and become a strong root that continues into the new millennium.”
Meanwhile, as of 2023, there are 31 sites nationwide designated as National Important Agricultural and Fishery Heritage sites, of which Jeollanam-do accounts for 13 sites, or 42%. In particular, Boseong-gun and Wando-gun are the only places that simultaneously possess both agricultural and fishery heritage.
Boseong-gun’s National Important Fishery Heritage No. 2, ‘Boseong Beolbae Fishery,’ is a fishery method that harvests cockles using beolbae boats in the Yeoja Bay mudflats of Boseong. The ‘beolbae’ is a device used to move across the mudflats by placing one knee on a plank and pushing the mud with the other leg.
National Important Agricultural Heritage No. 11, ‘Boseong Traditional Tea Agricultural System,’ has been recognized for its value by forming a unique agricultural cultural landscape that combines traditional agricultural techniques and tea culture, including traditional tea cultivation and processing techniques used by Boseong tea farmers and the terraced tea fields that preserve the natural terrain of the mountain slopes.
Boseong = Park Cheon-seok, Honam Reporting Headquarters, Asia Economy hss79@asiae.co.kr
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