President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday paid a sudden visit to the Haein Temple in Hapcheon County, South Gyeongsang Province, to meet the leaders of the Jogye Order, the nation's largest Buddhist sect.
During the meeting, Roh explained the government's decision to go ahead with its plan to build an expressway that will carve the Bukhansan National Park in two by a strip of highway eight lanes wide.
He also apologized for failing to conduct a poll to register public opinion over the issue and fulfill his election pledge to scrap the expressway project.
In response, the Buddhist leaders showed their understanding and promised to cooperate with the government's decision to build the expressway.
The government began constructing an expressway through Bukhansan National Park in 1991. Now out of a total of 136 km of highway, only 36 km between Ilsan and Toegyewon remains to be finished.
The government has formed a consortium, Seoul Circular Road Co., Ltd., with nine construction companies including LG E&C, to complete the remaining 36 km. The participating companies will make a profit by donating the road in exchange for the right to charge highway users tolls.
The government and the consortium decided to construct the road through Bukhansan National Park instead of bypassing the mountain in order to reduce construction costs by about 700 billion won.
If the highway is built, it will destroy more than 30 Buddhist temples and seriously damage the natural environment of the national park, which entered the Guinness Book of World Records for being visited by more people per square mile than any other site, Buddhist and environmental groups said.
The Bukhansan National Park has streams between granite peaks and 1,300 species of plants and animals.
It is the site of various important historical and cultural artifacts including over 100 Buddhist temples and the 2,000-year-old Bukhansansung walls.
A natural resources investigation in 2001 reported that there are 692 species of plants, 12 species of mammals, 87 species of birds, 7 species of amphibian life, 6 species of reptiles, and 447 species of insects in Bukhansan National Park.