The
Symposium was successfully held at The Shilla Seoul, Korea,
25-26 October 2018. Organized by the National Institute
of Forest Science (NIFoS) and Center for International
Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Symposium was also participated
by six individuals from APAFRI member institutions: Kasetsart
University, Thailand; Forest Research Institute Malaysia,
Forest Department Sri Lanka and University of the Philippines
Los Baños.
The
Symposium provided a forum for showcasing successful evidences
of Korea's restoration initiatives taking place at the
country level, as well as for discussions on the role
of regional and international platforms in drawing attention
to such projects.
The
Symposium lined up many distinguished speakers from various
international organizations. Mr. Robert Nasi, Director
General of CIFOR delivered the special lecture on “Forest
landscape restoration: Turning the bare land into a great
nation”. In his presentation, he listed out seven factors
of deforestation and forest degradation in the Republic
of Korea during the 1950’s. In the 1960’s, there was a
few drivers of deforestation such as the over-exploitation
of forests, expansion of agricultural land and the Korean
War. In a global scope, around 12 million hectares of
land are lost each year to degradation and the drivers
vary between the subregions. The challenge for advocates
of forest Restoration is to make it financially viable.
The
first session was chaired by Prof Youn Yeo-Chang. Profesor
Emeritus Kyung Joon Lee from Seoul National University
highlighted the history and causes of forest devastation
and the implementation of major forest policies which
lead to the successful restoration. Mr. Douglas McGuire
introduced the implementation of FAO’s Forest and Landscape
Restoration Mechanism (FLRM). The ROK experience and funding
is the key for FLR and FLRM. The achievements of FLRM
could be seen at global, regional and country levels.
Dr. Ki Yeon Ko informed that once ROK was an Official
Development Assistance (ODA) recipient country, but now
ROK is providing ODA to the countries in need. Korea’s
support mechanism are by providing bilateral ODA to seven
countries and by supporting 11 international organizations.
ROK also hosted bilateral forestry cooperation meetings
every two years and facilitates the exchange of technology
and information through multilateral channels.
Session
Two was chaired by Dr. Christopher Martius. Dr. Himlal
Barat outlined CIFOR’s strategies which aligned with the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.
The collaborative project between CIFOR and NIFoS on “restoring
land and growing renewable energy” is the example of the
effort on how sustainable bioenergy can be developed to
avoid-energy-environment trilemma with alternative feedstock
while restoring degraded lands in Indonesia. Mr. Craig
R. Beatty from International Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN) introduced the Restoration Opportunities
Assessment Methodology (ROAM). ROAM is a methodology to
identify and prioritize FLR opportunities at the national
and subnational levels. In Asia, there are five countries
committed 24 mha to Bonn Challenge and at least six countries
are carrying out ROAM to prioritize actions and investment
for landscape restoration. Ms Sarwat Chowdhury then talked
about the capacity building of developing countries based
on the successful case of Korea’s greening. The presentation
was followed by Mr. Utchang Kang who gave brief explanation
about the implementation of Land Degradation Neutrality
(LDN) on the Korean Peninsula. Among the objectives of
LDN are to maintain or improve ecosystem services and
to increase resilience if the land and population dependent
on the land.
The
last session was chaired by Profesor Yowhan Son. Dr Myungkil
Kim highlighted the current status of forests in Korean
Peninsula and the future direction of International forest
cooperation. Dr. Liu Jinlong from Renmin University of
China then pointed out the priorities for the action planning
for FLR in DPRK which should be in the form of pilot projects
and scaling up of field experiences. Dr. Jae Soo Bae ended
the session by presenting the useful information of the
win-win forest cooperation between South Korea and North
Korea.
A
Panel Discussion was held before the closing of the Symposium.
A short trip to the Korean Demilitarize Zone (DMZ) was
organized on the second day. The participants had a wonderful
experience walking inside the Third Infiltration Tunnel
and visited the Dora Observatory which was built by the
Ministry of National Defence in 1986.
