<기사제목> Korea Forest Service Provides Swift Support to Forestry Workers Affected by Pine Mushroom Damage in Wildfire Disaster Areas

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korea Forest Service is launching rapid support for forestry workers in wildfire disaster areas where pine mushroom harvesting has become difficult due to forest fires.

The Korea Forest Service announced on the 8th that, with an additional supplementary budget of 4 billion KRW recently secured, it plans to accelerate support for forestry workers in wildfire disaster areas such as Uljin and Samcheok.

Uljin and Samcheok are regions severely affected by large-scale wildfires last March, and the government has designated these areas as wildfire disaster zones.

In particular, the damage caused by the wildfires in these areas was concentrated on pine mushroom farms. Uljin and Samcheok are major production areas accounting for 17% of the nation's pine mushroom output, and among the 1,701 forestry households affected by the recent wildfires, 706 households (41.5% of the total) are pine mushroom harvesting forestry households.

The problem is that pine mushrooms are difficult to cultivate artificially and must be harvested from the wild, and it takes 20 to 30 years for pine mushrooms to naturally regrow in wildfire-affected areas.

Therefore, the Korea Forest Service judges that a long-term income reduction for local pine mushroom harvesting forestry workers is inevitable.

Accordingly, the Korea Forest Service has secured the supplementary budget to promote the ‘Pine Mushroom Alternative Crop Cultivation Project.’ The project focuses on helping forestry workers, who find it difficult to harvest pine mushrooms due to wildfires, to produce forest products as alternatives to pine mushrooms.

To participate in the project, applications must be submitted to the forestry departments of the relevant city or county by the 22nd of this month. Eligible applicants are pine mushroom-affected forestry workers in wildfire disaster areas such as Uljin, Gangneung, Samcheok, and Donghae.

The Korea Forest Service will provide 20 million KRW per household (with a 50% matching of national and local government funds) to support the establishment of infrastructure necessary for forest product production, such as seeds and seedlings, wells and irrigation facilities, and shiitake mushroom cultivation facilities.

In this process, the Korea Forest Service plans to simplify related certification documents for forestry workers registered as wildfire victims to ensure they receive support quickly.

Kim Yong-gwan, Director of the Forest Industry Policy Bureau at the Korea Forest Service, said, “We hope the Pine Mushroom Alternative Crop Cultivation Project will help the self-reliance of wildfire-affected forestry workers and revitalize the economy of the affected areas even a little. The Korea Forest Service will continue to strive for institutional improvements, such as establishing restoration funds for pine mushrooms.”

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