Suncheon City Establishes Nation's First 'Land Illegal Activity Inspection Team'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Suncheon City (Mayor Heo Seok) has established the first-ever Illegal Activity Inspection Team within the Audit Office nationwide to crack down extensively on illegal land development activities, including in mountainous areas, and on June 30 announced the legislative notice of the ordinance (draft) for the payment of rewards for reporting illegal mountainous area activities.

The newly established Illegal Activity Inspection Team (1 team leader, 2 team members) plans to continuously monitor illegal development activities by land category management departments such as farmland and forestland, and perform related duties including official inspections, investigations, and processing.

Along with this, Suncheon City is promoting the enactment of an ordinance to pay rewards up to 2 million KRW annually to citizens who report acts such as forest (private land, public land) damage or illegal conversion after the 1st of this month, if judicial punishment is carried out.

The universal design city, promoted as the administrative philosophy of Suncheon City’s 7th elected term, aims to create a city where people, nature, and life coexist peacefully by preserving the ecosystems of sky, land, and water well, which can be understood in the context of establishing this Illegal Activity Inspection Team.

A Suncheon City official said, “In the case of illegal development activities in mountainous areas, actual restoration is practically impossible, requiring a long period and significant restoration costs, and there were limitations to post-inspection activities by public officials alone,” adding, “To conduct effective crackdowns, we introduced a reward system for reporting illegal mountainous area development activities.”

Meanwhile, Suncheon City was designated as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO on July 25, 2018, and is scheduled to host the 2023 Suncheonman International Garden Expo, expecting to leap beyond its status as Korea’s ecological capital in the latter half of the 7th elected term to become the world’s most livable ecological garden culture city.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.