MANILA, Philippines – The world, and the Philippines in particular, can learn much from the experience of South Korea in rehabilitating its forest lands that were devastated during the Japanese occupation as well as during the Korean war in the early 1950s. The Korea Forest Service has developed a sustainable forest management system that it freely shares with other countries.

In our recent trip to South Korea as one of the Asean journalists invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mofat), we were most impressed by the success of this country in establishing and sustainably managing its forest resources.

Korean forests cover some 6,370,304 hectares or 64 percent of the total land mass of the country. There are national forests as well as privately-owned forests.

The privately-owned forests cover 68 percent of the forests areas while the national forests and the so-called public forests occupy the remaining 32 percent.

South Korea carried out its reforestation program in stages. The government started its reforestation projects in earnest in 1973 after it first crafted a five-year national forest plan. At that time the growing stock per hectare was a mere 6 cubic meters as compared to today’s growing stock in national forests of 135 cubic meters per hectare.

Since then, the Koreans have planted some 11 billion trees in both the privately-owned and the national forests. The first national forest rehabilitation program to restore the devastated forests was launched to address the serious social problems such as lack of fuel, severe floods and droughts. More than one million hectares of denuded forest were restored with fast growing tree species through public participation.

The second phase (1979 to 1987) was devised to establish large scale commercial forests that could develop into sustainable timber resources for domestic demands for timber products.

KFS explained that along with reforestation projects, erosion control was also actively undertaken to prevent natural disasters, and advanced biotechnology was adopted to control forest diseases and pests. During the second phase, commercial forests were established in 325,000 hectares and plantation in 1.06 million hectares was completed in total.

The third forest plan (1988-1997) aimed at “harmonizing economic functions and public benefits of the forests.” The Plan focused on establishing foundation and infrastructure of forest management, including forest road construction, forest mechanization, education for foresters and forestry workers, etc.

KFS also carried out forestry income enhancement projects and public awareness-raising programs on the importance of forests and its conservation. At the same time the plan supported overseas plantation projects with the aim of securing stable and long-term timber supplies. For instance, Korea has played a leading role in restoring and rehabilitating degraded forests in East Asia. It supported reforestation projects to prevent desertification in West China, the formation of greenbelt in Mongolia, the cooperative activities of the nongovernmental organizations between Korea and China, the restoration of mangrove forests in Indonesia and the restoration of tropical forest in Myanmar.

Under the fourth national forest plan (1998-2007) a transitional phase of forest policies was carried out from mainly focusing economic functions to enhancing overall forest benefits including public and recreational benefits.

Sustainable forest management was reflected on forest policies and activities.

The government-led forest management policies turned into autonomic forest management in the private forest sector, based on the capability and discretion of forest owners. Appropriate forestry laws were enacted.

The fifth national forestry plan (2008-2017) has been designed to further expand the implementation of sustainable forest management in pursuit of maximizing forest functions. The plan highlights the importance of forest functions in responding to climate change.

In implementing the plan, the KFS focuses on promoting systematic implementation of forest conservation and management, fitting for the purpose of achieving well-balanced land development and conservation. It further highlights forest’s recreational and cultural functions for improving quality of life and living environments both in urban areas and mountain villages as well as providing welfare benefits for the people. (More next time)