Minister Park Chong-ho of the Korea Forest Service (KFS) announces the KFS’s 2020 Business Plan at KFS headquarters in Daejeon Government Complex on Feb. 12. (Photo: KFS)

Forest trails 65 kilometers in length will be established along the East Coast area as firebreaks to prevent fires, and jobs such as “forest leisure-sport technical adviser” will be inaugurated.

The initiative is part of the KFS’s 2020 Business Plan, announced by Minister Park Jong-ho of the Korea Forest Service at KFS headquarters in Daejeon Government Complex on Feb. 12.

Under the catchphrase “Forestry that Develops Together, Inclusive Forest that Protects People’s Lives,” KFS came up with five core tasks, including the establishment of forest management system designed to promote co-existence and co-prosperity, good job creation & steps to reinvigorate the forestry and the securing of sustainable growth momentum in the forest sector.

KFS plans to shore up fundamentals of the forestry and create a forest management regime the way co-existence and co-prosperity can be promoted with the regional community.

To this end, privately-owned forest areas, too small and diverged to manage properly, will be grouped into ones covering between 500 ha and 1,000 ha. Such “leading forest management zones” will be spread as shared growth model of each regional community, so the overall revision of the Act on Forest Resources would make forest management substantial, KFS said.

KFS has come up with a plan to promote international forest cooperation. It plans to implement the Ethiopian pilot project to muster the international community’s support for Korea-led “Peace Forest Initiative.”

KFS Looks to Spearhead REDD+ Initiative

Korea Forest Service (KFS) is striving to spearhead reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+).

KFS wants to expand and evolve it into a model of collaboration designed to respond to climate change.
KFS has been implementing REDD+ pilot projects to secure certified emission reduction through REDD+ activities in four Asian countries - Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos - to meet its national greenhouse gas reduction targets since 2012.

Making the most of the experiences attained in the course of the implementation of these REDD+ pilot projects, Korea is exploring ways of expanding and evolving REDD+ into a model of collaboration designed to respond to climate change under the Post-2020 Climate Change Regime that is to be launched in 2021.

In this regard, KFS hosted a meeting on progress towards REDD+ in Songdo ConvensiA in Incheon for three days from June 19. Some 60 officials for Asian countries and international organizations participated in the meeting.

Among those on hand at the event were government and forest administration officials from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Mongolia as well as the Japanese Forestry Agency and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The event was part of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Week 2019 (APFW2019), held there last June 17-21.

APFW2019 was jointly hosted by KFS and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, APFW2019 promoted the theme “Forests for peace and well-being” and provided a venue to discuss and shared views on the most pressing challenges in the forestry sector.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) took an integral role by co-leading Stream 3 to explore the theme “Building a Resilient Environment”.

The Stream featured 26 events, focused on the role of forestry in achieving global environmental goals. Events covered forests’ contribution to addressing the challenges of climate change, including progress towards REDD+ in various regions, the importance of peatland forests, advances in forest monitoring, and the prospects for new avenues of forest finance to meet these challenges.

Climate change is said to be the greatest challenge faced by humanity. With increasing incidence and severity of climate change related disasters, resilience building has been the focus of global attention in recent decades.

Global conventions, frameworks, programs and targets have been set to guide national actions toward addressing this challenge. The roles and contributions of forests have been recognized and central to many of these global initiatives.