A study on the development project of mountain settlements in Korea

The Korean government has finished the development of 69 villages by 2002 from the beginning of the first mountain village in 1995 and invested 119.2 billion won for the development cost of mountain settlements in order to cultivate a base village for forest management. In 2003, basic research for the status of a mountain settlement was performed to use it as an effective way of promotion for the development policy of mountain settlements and establishment of a basic plan for 119 cities and guns, 508 counties and myeons, and 4,973 administrative units nationwide. However, the development projects of mountain settlements that have been promoted in former times present some problems, such as passive participation of the local residents and project promotion that does not reflect the characteristics of a local area. Therefore, this study establishes research that will contribute to the development project of a mountain settlement through an active investigation for the residents of 5 mountain villages in Gyeonggi Province, Korea. From these results, the local residents decreased due to an increase in aging, lack of labor force, small-scale arable land, low grade of forest management, and not various incomes in spite of the improvement of a settlement base by introducing a forest development project. In order to process an effective development project of a mountain settlement, it can be seen that investment should be performed by considering the characteristics of the local area. In addition, the active participation of the local residents through a good enough discussion and a reflection of the residents' opinion are more important than anything else.