Urban heat mitigation and migrant worker safety initiatives expand in Korea and US

As global heatwaves intensify due to the climate crisis, urban planning is shifting focus toward the concept of the ‘forest canopy’—the area covered by tree leaves and branches—to protect public health. In New York, Mayor Zoran Mamdani has announced a ‘Urban Forest Plan’ aiming to increase the city’s canopy cover from 23.4% to 30% by 2040 through preservation, new planting, and management.

In South Korea, the Seoul Metropolitan Government is introducing ‘shade walking rights’ as a core urban policy, planning to plant large trees and double rows of street trees on wide sidewalks. Research from the Korea Forest Service indicates that street trees can lower pedestrian temperatures by an average of 3 degrees Celsius, with surface temperatures dropping by as much as 10 to 25 degrees. Additionally, urban canopies help reduce fine dust concentrations by over 30%.

Separately, Gyeonggi Province is addressing safety for the growing migrant worker population by expanding multilingual industrial safety manuals. Starting next month, 583 livestock farms will receive ‘Pandemic II,’ a gamified livestock quarantine education program supporting 12 languages, including Nepali, Vietnamese, and Thai. This initiative aims to overcome language barriers in high-risk sectors like manufacturing and construction, where a significant portion of the province's 160,000 migrant workers are employed.