| Ways to Utilize National and Public Forests for Economic Revitalization of Mountain Villages | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Chong, Hogun | ||
| Views | 98428 | Publication Date | 2019.02.14 |
| Original | |||
|
The purpose of the study is to find ways to continue using the national or public forest resources for economic and social revitalization of mountain villages. Measures such as increasing loans or usage licenses were proposed to revitalize forestry management and thus to bring mountain villages back to life economically and socially as well. Chapter 2 presents the current status and problems of the mountain villages, the limitations of the mountain village promotion policy, and the factors necessary to revitalize the mountain villages. The ratio of senior citizens in the mountain village area reached over 30 percent in 2017, and the population is continuously decreasing. If the current trend continues, the population of the mountain villages will decrease by 42 percent from 1.42 million in 2016 to 820,000 and 80 percent of the mountain villages are in danger of disappearing by 2050. In the mountain villages, the income of the employed households is 64% of the national income (as of 2017). Households of mountain villages are more dependent on the income from non-forestry activities than on the income from forestry activities (33%). In addition, the level of dependence on non-economic transfer and non-current income is 26.3 percent, which is more than double the national average. The government has been aware of the seriousness of the mountain village problem and has pushed forward various policies to promote the mountain villages, but their effects are minor. The assessment of the ecological mountain village project, which was one of the major mountain village promotion policies and conducted between 1995 and 2017, showed 22.4 percent of the villages received the total score of 80 points or more, 53.5 percent 60 to 80 points, and 24 percent below 60 points. It was found that village resources were not used efficiently, and project control was not done well, and the lack of leadership, lack of village manpower, conflict among residents, and uniformity of the project execution were cited as the reasons. According to the survey on village people and public service, the residents pointed out that human resources and active participation of the residents are the most important, and that on-site officials also pointed to residents' participation and community cohesiveness. In the areas of policy that are needed, both villagers and on-site officials pointed to financial support and infrastructure construction. Chapter 3 first reviewed the usage system of national or public forests by mountain villages. The national or public forest usage plans include forest use and loan, national forest protection agreement and usage free of charge, healing forest, joint forestry business, and public forest use permit and loan. The degree of utilization was identified regarding these plans. Factors limiting the use of national or public forests in mountain villages were analyzed. Given the importance of the national or public forests to revitalize the mountain village economy, it was necessary to prepare measures to expand the use by the mountain villages. Both the residents of the mountain villages and the on-site public officials recognize that more opportunities to use national or public forests should be provided to the villages. The problem first raised is a lack of information on the system and limited permissiveness. It is difficult to know where to grow forest products, and often their plans to rent national forests are restricted by the National Forest Management Plan. Detailed licensing period, fees, and scope of use of the system were also pointed out, and conflicts in the village, aging and manpower shortage related to the mountain village emerged as the biggest problems. In chapter 4, the forest resources utilization by mountain villages was first categorized. The case survey was conducted for production type and forest service provision type. Prior to the case study, the purpose of using the national or public forests to revitalize the mountain village economy and the conceptual framework and survey details for case analysis were set. The goal of using public and public forests for revitalization of the mountain villages was set by combining the principle of the care economy and the principle of the social economy. The framework for analysis was based on the Ostrom (2005) policy system framework, and the main components were physical conditions (mountain, forest resources), regular attributes (policy contents), participants (relationship, community participation) and behaviors. The survey was conducted for village representatives, residents, and officials of the National Forest Service. The issues of mountain village resources, participants, system enforcement and organizational interactions, and the level of vitalization of the rural economy were surveyed. Questions on the implementation of policies and interaction of the participants are conducted using the shared resource usage principle of Ostrom (1990). Chapter 5 presented four promotion directions based on the goal of using the national and public forests for active mountain villages. We also presented policy tasks for each direction of implementation, followed by implementation measures for possible areas at a relatively early time when there is a similar case of policy operation at home or abroad. In order to achieve the national or public forest usage goals of the mountain villages, an upgrade of the use system, system enforcement, and participants' competence is needed first, and the social care economy is necessary to secure the sustainable national and public forest usage by villages. In response, we set four policy tasks such as improving the national and public forest utilization system to expand the utilization and enhance effectiveness, promoting the participants’ competence (strengthening the capability of village residents), building a system for smooth policy implementation, and executing the social care economy in the field. Policies tasks for ‘improving the national and public forest utilization system to expand the utilization and enhance effectiveness' include expanding the scope of national and public forestry management permit, streamlining application and licensing procedures for forestry products, expanding mountain management education and a compliance monitoring mechanism, and designing the policy in view of users. Supplementing education programs for mountain village leaders and fostering village leader attracting programs, providing a support system for the incoming new residents, promoting various community organizations are proposed as policy tasks for ‘promoting participants’ competence’. As part of the policy tasks for ‘building a system for smooth policy implementation’, to organize a consultative body for villages, regional and public forest management institutions, to promote horizontal cooperation among forest management institutions, to provide a support mechanism between village and management institutions are proposed. As a practical task for ‘executing the social care economy in the field’, revaluation of the mountain village's social revitalization, social interest and support for national or public forest usage by mountain villages, priority of services to the mountain community for the purpose of the national and public forest service project in the mountain village are presented. Researchers: Chong Hogun, Kim Soosuk, Jeong Eunmi, Byun Seungyeon Research period: 2018. 1. ~ 2018. 10. E-mail address: hogunc@krei.re.kr |
|||