A study on main actor for sustainable forest management in Korea

According to the establishment period (1998 to 2007) for sustainable forest management, the forest basic plan in Korea indicated that a long-term forest management is required to realize the sustainable forest management. In this condition, most of private forest owners have abandoned or ignored to do the individual management of their forests even though the private forests occupied 70% of total forest land areas, which mean is that the private forest can be the most important main actor for forest management; thus adequate forest management by the private forest owners might not be expected. Therefore, new main actor for the forest management is required to replace the private forest owners who have performed as a main actor for the forest management so far. With this reason, various main actors for the forest management, such as Association, Business Corporation, Forest Owner's Association, Local Public Enterprise, and Logging Contractor, were introduced. In conclusion, the forest owner's association is the most adequate main actor for the forest management as a new because it is a forestry business corporation that has conducted the works and guidance related to the private forest, and also it prepared sufficient conditions for the forest management, such as forest management experts, forestry technicians, capital, technology, and equipment. However, even if various main actors for the forest management can be created to replace the forestry cooperative, the separation of forest ownership and management should be performed to realize the sustainable forest management.