Jeju island English speaking tour guide

Story of Jeju island by Mr.Dee

2024. 12. 2.
The lava forest named ‘Got-jawal’ in Jeju island is a unique forest. Originally, the word Gotjawal is a combination of two words, ‘got’ and ‘jawal’. ‘Got’ means bush with thorns and ‘Jawal’ means a place with gravels and rocks in the forest.

Since when the word ‘Gotjawal’ has been used to refer to this unique forest that can be only found in Jeju island.  In fact, the word 'Gotjawal' is said to have been created by the late Song Si-tae by combining 'Got' and 'Jawal' while he was studying this forest.

We can find the characteristics of’Gotjawal’ in the creation of Jeju island that was formed recently compared to the mainland Korean peninsula. The Korean peninsula was formed around 1 billion 500 million years ago and Jeju island was formed around 1 million 400 thousands years ago. It’s very time different. The characteristic of the mainland is that because it is old, granite that hardened underground and became lava is exposed on the surface. But compared to this, the land of Jeju Island is very young, so it still appears less weathered.

Here, ‘weathering’ refers to the process in which large stones turn into soil over a long period of time as rocks and water are affected by temperature. Jeju Island is famous for having rough soil and lots of rocks because it has not been weathered much. This also applies to Jeju Island’s forests. If you go into Jeju Island’s forests, there are more rocks than soil. These rocks are formed when lava flows became hardens. When volcano erupted lava flows and it becomes hardens then it has been broken into pieces over time. After that a forest has been formed on top of these broken rocks. The forest of Jeju island formed this way is called ‘Gotjawal.’

Gotjawal is a forest that formed on a terrain where lava flows and becomes rocks. Another characteristic of lava flows is lava tubes. The process of forming a lava tubes is that when low viscosity lava flows, the outer surface hardens and it becomes rock, and when all the hot liquid lava inside soaked out, an empty space is created. This is the process of creating a lava tubes. It could be big or small ones. Anyway, then, when the solidified lava flows and splits and becomes rocks and piles up, an empty space is created inside. This empty space collapses over time. The terrain where the lava cave and lava tube are exposed by this collapse is called  ‘sumgol.’

What role does this ‘sumgol’ play in the Gotjawal forest? First, it stores water. Since there is an empty space underground, when it rains, water flows into it and acts as an underground water storage. Jeju Samdasoo, Jeju mineral water, is also drawn from here in Gotjawal. Second, it emits air of a certain temperature. The temperature of the air is said to be around 12-15 degrees. Since air of a similar temperature is always emitted, cold-temperate plants and temperate plants that would have disappeared long ago can still exist in Gotjawal forests. That is why southern-limit plants and northern-limit plants can coexist in Gotjawal. This is a unique feature of Gotjawal forests that does not exist in other forests.

Then which plants are northern limit and which plants are southern limit plants? First of all, the ferns with tenacity survived. The representative southern ferns, wrinkled ferns, are commonly found around the Gotjawal Forest. The small ferns, which are usually found above 1,000m of sea level, are also found here in Gotjawal Provincial Park, Jeju, which is less than 300m above sea level. The raccoon ferns are said to be ferns found around the Amnok River in Korea. This raccoon ferns also coexist with other plants here. In particular, the Jeju Sam fern, a unique species found only on Jeju Island, is found in the Gotjawal Forest.

The reason why Jeju Island has such a unique lava forest among numerous volcanic areas around the world is because Jeju Island is a very young land, which means it is less weathered. Jeju Island is neither tropical nor temperate, but rather subtropical. Jeju Island is only about 110km from the mainland, but the warm current flowing around the island makes the winter mild. For this reason, Jeju Island has a subtropical climate.

In addition, the Gotjawal Forest is home to the 2nd class endangered wild plants designated by the Ministry of Environment, such as the dogwood and the bill tree, as well as 7 species of endangered animals, such as the hawk, the bald eagle, the great hawk, the palatine tit, and the long-tailed tit.

Until a few decades ago, the Gotjawal forests of Jeju Island were useless land that could not be farmed. In the 1980s, golf courses began to be built one after another in Jeju Island, and most of them were built inside of the Gotjawal forests area. Not only golf courses, but also new cities were built on top of the Gotjawal forests by digging them up. As a result, the Gotjawal forests that remain in Jeju Island today are only those shown on the map below.

Jeju Island is already sick amidst endless debates over between development and preservation. I think we need intense research on how to develop and what to preserve. It will be too late to restore nature that has been destroyed once. The more you see and know, the more you feel the preciousness of it. I hope Jeju Island's lava forest 'Gotjawal' will not be destroyed any more.