Sustainable forestry technical workshop held in Seoul as background for upcoming DSPs

October 28, 2018

 

A technical workshop focused on Sharing Korea’s Experience in Sustainable Forestry Management and its Possible Application in Developing Country Contexts was held in Seoul on 29 October 2018. The workshop was organized by the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre in close cooperation with Korea Forest Service and National Institute of Forest Science.

This workshop is a product of USPC’s substantive technical research and ongoing collaboration on Korea’s forestry experience including SDGs Policy Brief 1: Valuation of Reforestation in Terms of Disaster Risk Reduction: A Technical Study from the Republic of Korea, 31 Dec 2016), SDGs Policy Brief 2: Sharing Korea’s Development Experience in Sustainable Forest Management: Focusing on Experimental Forests in Jeju Island, 31 Dec 2016), and the research paper on “Economic Viability of the National Scale Forestation Program: The Case of Success in the Republic of Korea”, published in Ecosystem Services, Jan 2018.

The Oct 29 meeting brought together policy makers from Korea and 10 other countries from the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Central America along with some of UNDP’s national and regional forestry experts. This resulted in an interactive and substantive discussion on Korea’s forestry experience and the realities in various developing countries.

The workshop featured technical presentations by UNDP; Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia and Korea Forest Service. In the key note presentation, Professor Yowhan Son of Korea University highlighted the main points of a USPC-Korea University joint background paper focusing on “Sharing Korea’s Experience in Sustainable Forestry Management and its Possible Application in a Developing Country Context”. The second-half of the workshop focused on group discussions on the areas of sustainable forest management; and reforestation and the possible tools from Korea that can be applied in developing countries.

In his welcome remarks, Ambassador Park Chull-joo, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Korean Mission to the United Nations highlighted the strategic importance of forestry in the Korean Peninsula; and that forest restoration is a priority area for inter-Korean cooperation.

President of National Institute of Forest Science (NIFOS) in his address noted that UNDPSPC ’s Development Solutions Partnership (DSP) will be an effective platform to share ROK experience in restoration of degraded forests with many developing countries.

The workshop was followed by a field visit to the NIFOS premises for the international participants to learn about and discuss Korea’s sustainable forestry practices.