In 1953, South Korea began a massive reforestation campaign after the Korean War. Decades later, the effort produced a stunning transformation, with more than 10 billion trees turning barren mountains into thriving forests

South Korea's mountains tell a remarkable story of environmental recovery. In the aftermath of the Korean War, huge stretches of the country's hills had been stripped of vegetation, leaving behind severely degraded landscapes. More than seven decades later, those same mountains are covered by forests, and the country's average volume of standing wood has increased more than 29 times since 1953.

The transformation did not happen simply because millions of seedlings were planted. It required government planning, village participation, changes in household energy use, forest protection and years of learning from failures.