Park Jong-ho, Korea Forest Service Chief: "Practical Policies Over Formalities... Making Forests a Resting Place for the People"

Park Jong-ho, Chief of Korea Forest Service, 1st Anniversary of Inauguration on the 12th
Forest Healing Program Wins Silver Award at Government Innovation Competition
Achievements Include Strengthening Disaster Response through Resident and Related Agency Cooperation
Increased Focus on Improving Income for Forestry Workers

Park Jong-ho, the Commissioner of the Korea Forest Service, recently introduced the major forest policies and achievements pursued this year in an interview with Asia Economy. Photo by Korea Forest Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] “From the beginning, forests have belonged to all the people, and the Korea Forest Service (government) plays the role of an intermediary to ensure that the benefits provided by forests are delivered safely and evenly to the public. In that sense, the Korea Forest Service will always strive to realize forest policies that prioritize the people on the ground.” Park Jong-ho, Administrator of the Korea Forest Service (59, photo), said this in a recent interview with Asia Economy.

Administrator Park marks his first anniversary in office on the 12th of this month. When Park took office, there was a certain sense of expectation both inside and outside the Korea Forest Service. This expectation reflected the fact that the position of Administrator, which had often been filled by external appointments, was now filled by an internal promotion, and that Park’s over 30 years of experience as a professional forest policymaker in the field would bring positive signals to overall forest policy.

Looking at the external results over the past year, the outcome is not bad. For example, last month, the Korea Forest Service won the Prime Minister’s Award (Silver Prize) at this year’s Government Innovation Best Practices Integrated Competition for the ‘Forest Healing Program,’ a multi-ministerial cooperative project responding to the COVID-19 era.

Also, the swift response and inter-agency collaboration during the May wildfire in Goseong helped minimize the damage, contributing to raising the Korea Forest Service’s national standing.

This can be interpreted as the effect of the field- and citizen-centered forest policies promoted by the Korea Forest Service under Administrator Park’s leadership. Above all, cooperation among related agencies has been evaluated as contributing to coping with crisis situations such as the Goseong wildfire and alleviating public fatigue amid the spread of infectious diseases.

At the time of his inauguration, Administrator Park emphasized, “I will faithfully implement the basics of forest policy while focusing on supporting national agenda tasks,” and “I will prioritize substance over form in forest administration to create tangible results that forestry workers and the public can feel in their daily lives.”

In line with this, Administrator Park said, “The Korea Forest Service will develop forest policies so that forests become a resting place and healing space for everyone,” adding, “Above all, based on the Korea Forest Service’s unique role of planting and nurturing trees, we will fulfill our duty to protect the people and forests from disasters such as wildfires and landslides.”

In particular, Administrator Park stressed his determination to strengthen the response capabilities to forest disasters, which have recently emerged as a major forest issue. He said, “It is no exaggeration to say that the success or failure of disaster response work such as wildfires depends on organic cooperation among residents of disaster areas and related agencies,” and “The Korea Forest Service will solidify the cooperative system among related agencies necessary for forest disaster response and fully utilize the know-how it possesses to enhance response capabilities on the ground.”

He also showed interest in forestry workers, who are a key group in the forest sector. Administrator Park said, “It is true that forestry workers have been relatively marginalized within various forest policies,” and “Therefore, the Korea Forest Service will look after practical benefits so that forestry workers can raise diverse voices as a key group in the forest sector and contribute to nurturing and protecting forests through income improvement and the introduction of a forestry direct payment system.”

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