Korea needs to boost investment in developing overseas forest resources

When it comes to forest planting, Korea has been widely acclaimed as one of the most successful nations across the world.

Beyond forestation, the Korea Forest Service is now leading global efforts to preserve forest resources in the face of the emerging issues of climate change and CO2 emissions.

Against this backdrop, the meeting between Korea and Indonesia on cooperation in forestry and the seventh forest forum that took place last week in Jakarta bear much significance. Those meetings were held to commemorate the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Following is an interview with Ryu Kwang-su, the director-general of the International Affairs Bureau at the KFS, who attended the meetings in Indonesia.

Q: You were deeply involved in preparing the two meetings. How were the preparations?

A: Since the Indonesian government is very busy tackling forest fire and smog, it was very hard to set a time and place for the meetings. In particular, the Indonesian forest minister was so busy that he had to use a helicopter to get to the venue. Despite his tight schedule, the minister attended all functions and flew back to the parliament. This made me think that Indonesia has a willingness and interest to cooperate on forestry with Korea.

Q: Why has the cooperative relationship between Korea and Indonesia in the field of forestry been regarded as a model case in overseas resource development? And what achievements have been yielded from Korea-Indonesia cooperation?

A: We recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia to foster 700,000 hectares for forestation. That will help Korean companies make a stable investment in the country. A total of 12 Korean companies have advanced into Indonesia and used 68 percent of the total 279,000 hectares reserved for overseas plantations. They have achieved some good results in plantations to produce timber and bioenergy.

Korean company Korindo, especially, has grown as a large firm in Indonesia based on the forestry business. This shows that the long-term relationship in forestry cooperation between the two nations has moved their interest from initial profit-seeking to sustainable development of overseas resources.

Q: The KFS also held a forestry forum, along with the Korea-Indonesia conference on forestry cooperation. What were its outcomes?

A: The two sides agreed to exchange information on biomass afforestation, cooperation between their countries’ organizations related to forestry leisure, and to establish academic ties between universities.

In particular, the two ministers agreed to expand their cooperation in investment and official development assistance to ecotourism using forests.

Q: A biomass project was discussed as the main agenda in the forum. What is the importance of the project?

A: Indonesia is a country with large potential to attract investment as it has plenty of timber resources with rapid growth. The purpose of our project is to stimulate private investment through two major strategies: introducing projects such as timber-pellet production and increasing the use of renewable energy in Korea.

Q: The KFS has been promoting bilateral and multilateral cooperation with foreign countries for development of overseas forest resources. Please tell us about the policy.

A: In bilateral cooperation, the KFS is focusing on plantation investment, ODA projects and expansion of exchanges of people between the two countries. We mainly discuss technology exchange in forestry in dealing with advanced countries like Japan and Austria. But in meetings with developing countries, we focus on transferring our know-how in forestation and discussing how to implement ODA projects.

For multilateral cooperation, the KFS is actively participating in global organizations dealing with UNCCD, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Climatic Change Convention. Moreover, the KFS plans to play a leading role in resolving issues of forestry as it set up AFoCO, the first international organization dealing with Asian forestry.

Q: Since Korea has a lack of space to expand forest areas, it seems to be crucial for the nation to promote overseas plantations to secure carbon emission trading capabilities.

A: The carbon emission trading issue is still ongoing, but we are particularly interested in plentiful resources in Indonesia with large potential. Indonesia also attracted investments from other developed countries like Japan and European countries. We are also making efforts not to lag behind in the carbon emission trading market.

We have granted a place (14,000 ha) for project REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) in Sumatra, Indonesia, and we are planning to implement the project by 2019. Cambodia is also considered our next investment destination at the moment.

Q: Lastly, how important is developing overseas resources and what are the KFS’ policies?

A: Our generation relies highly on imports of timber resources. One way that it can be dealt with is to expand investment to other countries to maintain a sufficient amount of timber and avoid production fluctuation. If done properly we will be able to secure the resources by ourselves. Together with this, we will initiate technology transfer as well as ODA projects in developing countries.

By Lee Kwon-hyung (kwonhl@heraldcorp.com)