Korea Forest Service "Easing Regulations Such as Expanding Forest Land Use... Seeking Balance Between Forest Conservation and Utilization"

The Korea Forest Service aims to expand the use of forest land through deregulation. The ultimate goal of deregulation is to maintain a balance between forest conservation and utilization by strictly protecting what must be preserved while lowering regulatory barriers within the scope of possible use.

A landscape tree cultivation site located in Yeoju-si, Gyeonggi-do. Provided by the Korea Forest Service.

The Korea Forest Service announced that it will revise and implement the Enforcement Decree of the Mountainous Area Management Act starting from the 7th.

The revision of the enforcement decree focuses on expanding the area of forest land use for mineral mining, forest product production, and landscaping tree cultivation by industries and forestry workers.

Tunneling mining (extracting minerals while digging tunnels) had been limited to forest land use of less than 20,000㎡ through temporary forest land use permits.

However, with the revision of the enforcement decree, forest land use can now be expanded up to 100,000㎡, which the Korea Forest Service expects will contribute to securing the economic feasibility and safety of mineral mining.

Additionally, for quarry sites, the regulation requiring mandatory economic feasibility evaluation when changing more than 10% of the permitted area has been relaxed; now, evaluations are required only when changes exceed 21%.

The revision of the enforcement decree also significantly strengthens support for forestry management activities in forest areas.

First, the area for landscaping tree cultivation through temporary forest land use has been expanded from less than 20,000㎡ to less than 50,000㎡.

Moreover, agricultural management entities registered as forest owners eligible for forest land conversion for forest product production have been added to activate forestry management. At the same time, the threshold for allowing installment payments of replacement forest resource creation costs due to forest land conversion has been lowered from 500 million KRW to 100 million KRW, enabling more rational operation of forest land regulations, according to the Korea Forest Service.

Nam Sung-hyun, Administrator of the Korea Forest Service, stated, “We will preserve forest land that must be conserved in its intact state and actively improve unreasonable forest land regulations caused by changing conditions to ensure a balanced maintenance of forest conservation and utilization.”

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