Intensive Crackdown on Illegal Activities in Forests Using 'Yudong Ingu Data Analysis'

The Forest Special Judicial Police apprehended a woman who illegally harvested wild edible plants in the forest through on-site enforcement. Photo by Korea Forest Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korea Forest Service is launching a focused crackdown on illegal activities in forests based on the analysis of floating population data.

The Korea Forest Service announced on the 27th that it will conduct a "Special Crackdown on Illegal Activities in Forests" until the end of next month.

The crackdown is carried out during the period when outdoor activities increase in spring and the number of forest visitors surges, aiming to prevent forest damage caused by indiscriminate harvesting of forest products and to preemptively block the risk of forest fires.

In particular, the special crackdown is conducted in cooperation between the Korea Forest Service and KT Corporation, extracting and analyzing regional floating population data based on mobile phone signal data, focusing on forest areas with high floating populations in spring.

About 2,000 personnel, including nationwide Forest Special Judicial Police, forest drone monitoring teams, Cheongwon forest protection staff, and forest protection support teams, will be deployed on site.

The main targets of the crackdown are ▲ harvesting wild vegetables and medicinal herbs without the consent of forest owners ▲ unauthorized digging up of landscaping trees ▲ illegal harvesting of special forest target species and unauthorized entry into habitats of rare plants.

Additionally, during the special crackdown period, to prevent forest fires, acts such as ▲ entering restricted forest areas without permission ▲ lighting fires or smoking inside forests ▲ carrying fire sources when entering forests will be strictly controlled.

The crackdown will be conducted regardless of forest jurisdiction, whether national or private forests, and the Korea Forest Service’s policy is to strictly punish illegal activities detected during the crackdown according to relevant laws.

Last year, during the spring special crackdown period (April 1 to May 31), the Korea Forest Service detected a total of 868 illegal activities in forests. Among them, fines totaling 43 million KRW were imposed on 356 cases, 331 cases were reported to authorities, and 181 cases were restored or given warnings.

Lee Hyun-joo, head of the Forest Protection Division at the Korea Forest Service, said, “We plan to efficiently crack down on large forest areas through scientific data analysis,” and added, “Please recognize that harvesting forest products in areas not owned by yourself is illegal and voluntarily participate in forest protection.”

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