The World Scout Jamboree Farce Wasn’t Just an Environmental Mishap

South Korea’s Saemangeum project is a daring engineering feat. In the middle of South Korea’s western coast, the government cordoned off 409 square kilometers of tidelands with the world’s longest seawall. This reclaimed area is supposed to be turned into a futuristic city carved into zones for residence, agriculture, bio research, leisure, ecological havens, and so on. More than 30 years in the making, however, the project is far from complete and the area remains an open stretch of briny, unpopulated land.

Yet from August 1 to 13, this was the site for the 25th World Scout Jamboree, a quadrennial festival that sees tens of thousands of youths from around the world gather to camp outdoors. Its purpose is to inculcate a sense of global humanity and leadership through exposure to different cultures and difficult outdoor lifestyles.

The scout motto is “Be Prepared.” Yet nobody was prepared for what went down during the Saemangeum jamboree: a complete environmental and logistical debacle. The collective misery of this year’s scout congregation – 43,000 scouts from 158 countries – showcased the degree to which South Korea’s bureaucracy and the Saemangeum project faltered.

Tracing the news of the jamboree feels like reading the script for a tragicomedy. Around the time the scouts flooded into the reclaimed tidelands, South Korea was simmering in heat of almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). Things were even worse than the temperature suggested. Reclaimed wetlands are humid, and the expansive surface has no natural shade. Water pooled everywhere due to poor irrigation. Humidity and puddles turned the campsite into a hotbed of mosquitoes and other biting insects. Rations were rotten, too.

Hundreds fell ill from mostly heat- and infestation-related symptoms, some of whom had to be hospitalized. But the environmental and topographical setbacks were just the beginning. Amenities were also in a shambles. Scouts had to endure winding queues to take a shower. Shower booths and nets were poorly secured and soaked in mud.

One adult male leader of a scout team took a shower in a section reserved for female participants, causing a commotion and triggering a police investigation. The leader said he just wanted to take a shower because “it was too hot.” Shocked by the incident, dozens of South Korean scouts quit the camp.

By August 6, thousands of scouts from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore had left the jamboree. As if this wasn’t enough of a death knell, a typhoon advanced up the Korean Peninsula, prompting everyone remaining on the site to evacuate. Tens of thousands of scouts dispersed throughout South Korea, lodging at hotels, government facilities, and even a U.S. military base. Making up for the loss of the jamboree spirit, they visited tourist sites and participated in recreational activities haphazardly put together by the South Korean government.

Their gallivanting through the country was also not without adventure. The British delegation ended up cleaning refuse on a beach some 130 miles from the jamboree site. Some others were nabbed for shoplifting clothes. Some quarreled with hotel staff over cleaning schedules. Some German scouts were so deeply moved by the Buddhist way of living that they reportedly requested to become monks. Eventually, all the scouts gathered once again for a massive K-pop concert and a closing ceremony.

Beneath all these dominoes in a disastrous line, however, is the incompetence of a distended South Korean bureaucracy and the ill management of the Saemangeum project. Before and after the World Organization for the Scout Movement designated Saemangeum as the 2023 jamboree venue in 2017, reports by government agencies foretold extreme heatwaves and typhoons as potential obstacles to the jamboree.

At the time, North Jeolla, the province in charge of prepping the site, was confident that it could plant trees and create “a lush forest by 2023.” The provincial government later admitted in a 2020 report that the high sodium level in the soil thwarted efforts at forestry. Yet no alternatives or extra measures surfaced to offset the absence of natural shade and cooling elements.

Responsibility disappeared somewhere along the chain of command for planning, executing, and supervising. The preparation for the jamboree was marked by a cycle of legislators demanding to see improvements on the site, receiving promises from officials in charge, and then demanding again why things stayed the same. During a National Assembly audit in 2022, the minister for gender equality and family affirmed that organizers had established measures against typhoons and extreme heat – but they hadn’t. Instead, officials went on business trips abroad under the pretext of learning lessons to be applied to the jamboree; most of their itinerary was sightseeing.

Cleaning up after the mess was also marred by bureaucratic snags. From medical care to logistical evacuation and distribution of the scouts to various locations, the bureaucracy sputtered. The authorities funneled military personnel and medical staff into the campsite, leading to workforce shortages elsewhere. Facilities were ordered to accommodate scouts that didn’t even come to South Korea. The government “conscripted” specialists in AI, nuclear energy, and financial regulation – just to name a few – as chaperones and translators for the scouts. All these moves demonstrated a glaring disconnect between the central government and local authorities as to the on-site reality.

Also, the Saemangeum reclamation project itself was riddled with problems. Constructing a seawall and draining the area of seawater doesn’t mean the land is ready for use. Soil has to be dumped on and tamped down so that it’s no longer a salty marsh. Yet as of the end of 2019, only 12 percent of the site had been fully reclaimed due to lack of investment and poor direction.

The “leisure zone” slated for the jamboree was just a saline wetland until 2022. Several years before, the local authorities pulled an underhanded move to facilitate reclamation by deciding to host the jamboree at an unreclaimed spot. Once Saemangeum was chosen as the jamboree venue, the government poured money into infrastructure and quickly reclaimed the area.

To secure more funds, North Jeolla province also registered the jamboree site as an agricultural sector. Now, it could receive further aid from the Korea Rural Community Corporation. To fit the land criteria for agriculture, South Korea’s jamboree organizing committee leveled the field, instead of creating hillocks for improved water drainage.

And because the leisure zone was only recently reclaimed, it was too briny to support trees. In the end, with only the speedy reclamation of Saemangeum in mind, the budget for the jamboree contained paltry sums for emergency response.

At first, the jamboree smacked of a war zone as sick scouts lay on field beds. Then, tens of thousands of them ended up wandering through the country like backpacking nomads. A painful reckoning awaits on the part of the South Korean government – and of course, a lot of explaining to do to the world.