[Public Voices] Forest Owners Must Also Be Compensated to Maintain Forests as the "Nation's Sanctuary"

Professor Oh Choong-hyun, Department of Bioenvironmental Sciences, Dongguk University. Provided by Korea Forest Service

Edward Wilson, a professor in the Department of Biology at Harvard University, USA, published a book titled "Biodiversity" in 1988, contributing to making biodiversity a key principle in global natural environment conservation.

Subsequently, at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted to maintain biodiversity on a global scale, and in 2005, the UN published the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report.

The report points out that although ecosystem services are essential ecosystem functions and benefits for human happiness, quality of life improvement, and sustainable development, about 60% of them have been damaged worldwide. It also calls for scientific research and international joint management plans to maintain sustainable ecosystem services.

Among the natural resources Korea possesses, forests play the largest role in providing ecosystem services. In Korea, forests serve not only as simple natural resources but also as a refuge for the people. Behind this, private forest owners bear the costs and efforts themselves to maintain the public functions of forests, while also being restricted by actions such as logging bans. However, there are fewer people interested in the owners of forests (private forests) than expected.

The ecosystem service payment system emerged to solve problems arising when the producers and consumers of ecosystem services are different. Simply put, the ecosystem service payment system is a system where consumers pay costs to producers.

Payments can be made directly by the consuming entities or by the government on their behalf. However, when the consumers of ecosystem services are the unspecified majority of the public, it is generally the government that makes the payment.

In Korea, the ecosystem service payment system was introduced through the amendment of the "Act on Conservation and Use of Biodiversity" in 2021. According to this law, the ecosystem service payment system provides compensation costs to residents and landowners living in forest protection areas such as national parks when they engage in activities to conserve and enhance ecosystem services.

However, the fact that costs are paid only when specific activities are performed through contracts limits the concept practically to compensation for conservation activities rather than compensation for land ownership.

To overcome these limitations, the ecosystem service payment system should be structured so that landowners can receive compensation not only for activity rewards but also for conserving the land by not converting it to other uses and providing ecosystem services to the public.

The National Institute of Forest Science announced that as of 2020, Korea's forests have an annual public value of 259 trillion won. This means that each citizen receives an annual public forest benefit of 4.99 million won.

However, unlike the equitable enjoyment of public forest benefits by the public, private forest owners who own 67% of Korea's forests face restrictions on private property development, creating a justification for the government to compensate forest owners for providing forest ecosystem services on behalf of the public.

To this end, the National Assembly has also proposed an amendment to the "Forest Protection Act" under the name "Forest Public Value Conservation Payment System." For Korean citizens to sustainably enjoy forest ecosystem services in the future, compensation for forest owners who have been excluded from development so far must be made, and active government efforts are also necessary.

Oh Chung-hyun, Professor, Department of Bioenvironmental Sciences, Dongguk University

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