• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.21 no.5_3
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• pp.589-602
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• 1998

Mt. Nam (265m), a city park of Seoul, was originally covered with a typical deciduous broad-leaved forests in Central Korea. However, the park forests have been changed the development for various purpose such as the construction of castle wall, road way, broadcasting station, theater, hotel and apartments, in addition, to thoughtless plantation or alien plant introduction. Human population growth from ca. 100 thousands persons less in that time established Seoul as the capital of choseon dynasty in 1394 to ten millions over persons at present, accelerated the vegetational changes of the park. mt. Nam boundary in those days of sunjong (1908) also was much shrinked as much the range of 300 m distance in the northern most to 700 or 800m distance in some places. The actual vegetation of Mt. Nam largely can be classified by floristic composition into two plant communities of Quercus mongolica community and Pinus densiflora community, four plantations of Pinus rigida, Robinia pseudo-acacia, Populus tomentiglandulosa and other tree species, and on mixed forest with native and alien tree species in secondary succession stage (Yim et al. 1987). The restoration movement of Mt. Nam toward to the natural condition of forest or biodiversity is moving now. However, in the movement there are some problems such as the lack of ecological consideration and the undesirable decision of priority in the practice. A warning should be given, especially, on the undesirable plantation of non-native tree species restricting the forest succession, as in the case of southern slope of Mt. Nam. First of all, the most importance in Mt. Nam management is that the restoration for natural forest and biodiversity should be carried on the basis of integrated ecological principles based on the site evaluation.