Administrator Shin Won-sup of the Korea Forest Service (KFS)

Korea and Mongolia signed an MOU on bilateral cooperation on July 17 to prevent desertification. The deal was signed in the presence of the heads of state of both countries in the wake of the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), Administrator Shin Won-sup of the Korea Forest Service (KFS) said. 

The following are excerpts of an interview between NewsWorld and KFS Administrator Shin in which he spoke of a policy to develop the forest industry into an sixth industry with added values and other policies. 

KFS’s past efforts have borne tangible results. Deserted areas have not only turned into forests, but they have also contributed to creating a “green movement” in Mongolian society by encouraging the Mongolian government to designate Arbor Day and make aggressive efforts to prevent desertification. 

“Both countries promote bilateral friendship by building regimes to prevent desertification and dust, as Mongolia is the epicenter of yellow dust and sandstorms, and strengthen partnerships in the Northeast Asian region through afforestation,” Shin said.

Question: Will you tell our readers about KFS’s responsibilities?

Answer: KFS is responsible for making greener and thicker forests by planting and pruning trees. Our service implemented projects to plant trees and create forests in barren areas during the 1970s and 80s. Entering the late 90s, the KFS strove to make forest assets that give benefits to future generations. 

The KFS is charged with protecting forests from bushfires, landslides and forest diseases and harmful insects. Bushfires suddenly turn forests being cultivated for several decades into ashes, while landslides cause huge casualties. 

Forests bring diverse benefits to us. The KFS contributes to reinvigorating the national economy by creating incomes through the use and development of forest products, including lumber. They also serve as recreational, healing and education functions to people, bringing happiness to them, aiming at being a welfare country. 

Forests are the sole carbon sink to absorb greenhouse gas emissions. The KFS is engaged in planting trees and creating forests in Korea and abroad by building cooperative relationships with foreign countries to cope with climate change. Korea is transferring abroad the experiences and expertise the nation has obtained in the course of afforestation, and the nation is also strengthening cooperation with international organizations and foreign countries. 

Q: Public perception toward forests seems to have changed compared to the 1970s and 1980s. In the past, trees were imagined as just lumber and firewood. Of late, they aren’t esteemed as an educational ground for teaching kids’ holistic human development?

A: Forest education for kids stimulates their inquisitiveness and adventurism in the nature, cultivating their unlimited imaginations. Playing in the nature develops their creativity and thinking ability. 

The KFS has been operating forest education programs targeting kids in which they play and experience the woods freely since 2008 so that forests can be utilized as educational materials. 

In order to make forest education more systematic and livelier, the KFS enforced the Act on the Invigorating of Forest Education in 2012 and laid an institutional foundation to foster forest education tailored to meet kids’ needs by introducing experience centers, guides for educating kids and bodies responsible for woods education. 

Currently, there are 60 woods experience centers for children in which 100 teachers guiding woods education are posted to help kids attain holistic growth by experiencing forests’ diverse functions. 

National contests and symposiums are being held every year to encourage children’s participation in woods education programs. 

KFS Administrator Shin Won-sup shakes hands with his Mongolian counterpart after singeing an MOU on bilateral cooperation on July 17 to prevent desertification as President Park Geun-hye and Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj look on.

Q: I’ve heard that you have established plans to usher in an “era of forest welfare” in keeping with the trends of the times. What about the outcomes of forest welfare policies and what plans?

A: In 2013, the KFS established a master plan for forest welfare between 2013 and 2017 and declared a forest welfare vision. Thanks to aggressive infrastructure expansion and substantial service provision, beneficiaries surged to about 18.98 million people as of the end of 2015, receiving a good response from people. The nation saw forest welfare facilities rise from 345 in 2013 to 429 in 2015 and forest welfare specialists surge from 4.167 in 2013 and 8,115 in 2015.

In order to further systemize forest welfare services, the KFS legislated and enforced the “Ace on the Promotion of Forest Welfare” in March 2015. Under the law, we plans to come up with more aggressive forest welfare policies designed to provide support to vulnerable brackets, secure serve professionalism and ramp up ex-post facto management.

The Korea Forest Welfare Institute, specializing in the operation of forest welfare systems and the provision of the advanced forest welfare services, has been inaugurated to implement policies designed to reinvigorate the forest welfare industry.

The KFS has been operating forest education programs targeting kids in which they play and experience the woods freely since 2008 so that forests can be utilized as educational materials.

Q: Of late, greenhouse gas emissions reduction has emerged as a global topic. Will you elaborate on the significance of the functions of trees to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

A: Trees inhale CO2 in the atmosphere through photosynthesis, so forests are a natural means effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing trees with excellent tree species and managing woods can boost an effect of inhaling CO2. Expanding of woods in urban areas and making woods in closed-mine and idle-land areas are also recommended. 

Expanded use of Korean-made lumber is effective in cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions. Using lumber into papers could contain carbon for an average of three years, while utilizing lumber as construction materials and other long-term materials could possess carbon for an average of 50 years. Accordingly, KFS is seeking to implement policies on the utilization of Korean-bred sawing lumbers as long-term materials. 

Excessive deforestation of foreign forest zones and the utilization of forests as other purposes have undermined a function of global carbon sink, emerging as a global issue to be addressed. Korea implements projects to prevent deforestation in Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. The nation plans to expand pilot projects and make efforts to transfer green technology to the emerging countries. 

Q: Do you establish plans to cultivate the forest industry into the sixth industry and ways to boost regional economies?

A: We strive to cultivate regional forest products into a specialized industry to reinvigorate regional economies with the target of transforming clean forest product centers into forest product clusters, creating added values in such areas as production, processing, distribution, and experiencing/tasting. The KFS plans to establish seven forest product industrial complexes, including one for medicinal plants from Mt. Jiri in Hamyang. 

There are a few examples of transforming a forest industry into a sixth industry attracting huge tourists by combining such roles as “clean forest product centers” as well as forest/recreation facility/tourist attractions. For instance, Janseong Healing Woods is frequented by about 210,000 visitors annually. 

Q: Will you touch on the KFS’s efforts to create jobs?

A: The KFS provides support to forest high schools to nurture young manpower in the forest industry. Graduates get jobs at such forest areas as arboretums, tree hospitals and technicians’ offices. 

We support programs to dispatch university graduates as interns of foreign forest development companies and international organizations to cultivate global forest expertise manpower and land jobs abroad. 

KFS plans to introduce a qualification system for fostering forest carbon managers and “tree doctors” in accordance with such social needs as climate change and gardening industries to create new jobs. 

Such specialists as woods guides, woods education teachers for kids and forest welfare specialists gain popularity among retired job-seekers. We plan to support woods guides’ start-ups to create more jobs in the forest welfare industry.

The KFS plans to expand an institutional foundation to foster forest welfare services into a full-fledged industry. 

Q: Will you tell us about the importance of preventing bushfires so that future generations can enjoy the benefits we now do?

A: An average 400 bushfires break out annually, resulting in turning 466ha of forest into ashes. The damaged area is 1.6 times the size of Yeouido, Seoul. 

Many bushfires are caused by people’s carelessness. About 40 percent of annual bushfires were caused by mountain-goers, including climbers. Next came people who start bushfires while burning paddies and field walkroads, agricultural by-products, and waste, which accounted for 30 percent of the total. In some cases, bushfires were started by bunt cigarette butts thrown by people attending mountain tombs or were spread by house fires. 

When bushfires break out, firefighting copters from 11 sphere aviation management offices across the nation are dispatched to the scene within a half-hour to extinguish them. Bushfire prevention squads are swiftly mobilized to fight them on the ground. 

People preventing bushfires is more essential than ever. They are required to abide by the rules, including not using fire and non-smoking on mountains. When bushfires are found, people are asked to report them to forest departments or call 119. Persons found to have caused bushfires are punished with less than three years in prison or less than 15 million won in fines. 

KFS Administrator Shin said the KFS is hitting the accelerator to make the forest industry into a lucrative future growth engine industry. (Photos: KFS)

Q: Will you introduce major projects that the KFS implemented this year?

A: We’re planning to establish five strategic tasks tailored to meet external and internal conditions as well as people’s demands. 

First, we focus on forest management to brace for the effectuation of the post-2020 climate change regime. Korea’s forests are a major carbon sink. 

Forests absorbed an estimated 47 million tons of CO2 as of 2013, accounting for about 7 percent of the nation’s annual total greenhouse gas emissions, standing at about 690 million tons. 

The KFS has established a road map in the forest sector to contribute to the nation’s reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We have such policies in place as virtuous cycle management of forests, the expansion of urban woods, the wider use of Korean-made lumber and the replacement of fossil fuels through forest biomass. Abroad, the KFS implements projects to prevent deforestation. We plan to work out the so-called 2030 Forest Carbon Management Strategy to adjust forests’ climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Second, we strive to accelerate efforts to make the forest industry into a lucrative future growth engine industry. We plan to expand production by 42 trillion won by developing the forest industry into a 6th industry and raise forest product exports to $500 million. 

Third, we plan to boost forest welfare for people’s well-being. 

Fourth, we will ramp up efforts to make forests safe. We aim to have no major bushfires for the third consecutive year and no casualties caused by landslides. We will try our best to cope with forest disasters in a scientific fashion. 

Finally, we are devoting ourselves to creating and managing forests with countries around the world by participating in global efforts to prevent desertification and establishing an Asian forest cooperation body.

Q: Will you explain on the MOU on bilateral cooperation to prevent desertification that Korea and Mongolia have signed?

A: Korea and Mongolia signed an MOU on bilateral cooperation to prevent desertification on July 17 in the presence of the heads of state of both countries in the wake of the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting.

The agreement calls for joint efforts to prevent desertification in the Northeast Asian region and reduce yellow dust, supporting the restoring of forests in the Mongolian area, related research and technology, and implementing projects to grow forests in Ulan Bator, riddled with urbanization and pollutions, among others. 

It is significant that the latest deal is designed to continue efforts to prevent desertification and reduce yellow dust by making the most of the outcomes of the Korea-Mongolian greenbelt forestation project that took place between 2007 and 2016.

The KFS’s past efforts have borne tangible results. Deserted areas have not only turned into forests, but also they have contributed to creating a “green movement” in Mongolian society by encouraging the Mongolian government to designate Arbor Day and make aggressive efforts to prevent desertification. 

Both countries promote bilateral friendship by building regimes to prevent desertification and dust, as Mongolia is the epicenter of yellow dust and sandstorms, and strengthen partnerships in the Northeast Asian region through afforestation.