Korea's 300 million tree harvest plan to reduce carbon emission irks activists

In this May 6, 2020, file photo, trees are felled at the top of a mountain behind Indong Community Office in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province. The trees were cut down even before the district office launched an official business plan as to what to do with the land, according to a report by the Hankook Ilbo, sister paper of The Korea Times. Korea Times file

By Ko Dong-hwan

A major plan by Korea's state forest watchdog to harvest old trees in order to meet the country's goal of completely eradicating local carbon emissions by 2050 has drawn criticism from environmental activists, who say the plan is near-sighted and puts the country's long-conserved forests at risk.

The Korea Forest Service (KFS) announced on Jan. 20 that it will cut down 300 million "old" trees and plant 3 billion new trees to increase the overall carbon absorption capability of the country's forests. With the plan, the forest service estimated that the amount of local carbon emissions to be drawn in by trees will increase from 14 million to 26.8 million tons per year.

The plan will also allow new trees to absorb up to 2 million tons of carbon emissions from the air, and save an additional 5.2 million tons by allowing the country to replace fossil fuels, one of the country's top carbon emission sources, with lumber biomass ― part of which will come from the 300 million cut-down trees ― according to the agency.

The plan will thus eliminate 34 million tons of carbon emission annually starting by 2050, the KFS concluded.

But the activists' objection to the plan has been fierce.

Green Korea, a major NGO based in Seoul's Seongbuk District, accused the National Institute of Forest Service, a state research agency under the KFS, of masterminding the controversial plan, and condemned the state agency for its disregard for trees aged 30 years or older.

"We don't need a forestry service that is so near-sighted; it can only see the trees but not the forest," the group said in a public statement on April 19, adding that the government's tree harvest plan targets about 70 percent of the country's entire forests. The group highlighted that those trees are part of the country's rich forests that were planted in barren lands and mountains following the 1950-53 Korean War and have been conserved through decades of national forestation efforts that were launched in the 1960s.

"If the plan proceeds, all the trees 30 years or older in the country's national parks, protected forest areas and forest reserves along Baekdu Mountain Range will have to be fell," the group said.

Green Korea was most disturbed by the government considering local forests merely as a national tool for carbon absorption. The activist group believed that forests offer much more diverse "ecological services" to humans than that: providing food and natural chemical substances; balancing biological diversity, organic matter and energy; preventing natural disasters and fostering clean air; and sustaining spiritual, cultural and recreational necessities.

Conservation of biodiversity, in particular, was agreed upon in the 2010 U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity at COP 10 in Nagoya, Japan, the group mentioned, adding that member countries were to increase their local wildlife reserves on land and in oceans by at least 17 percent and 10 percent, respectively, by 2020.

"It was mankind's mission to preserve biodiversity," said the group, citing cases in which humans failed to do so, including breakouts of zoonotic diseases that caused extensive casualties worldwide like COVID-19, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), all of which were caused by humans' violations of the boundaries surrounding wildlife habitats.

"We cannot tolerate the government cutting down trees just to expand the country's resources to absorb carbon emissions" the group said. "We must take into account the overall benefits of our forests as we head to the national goal of carbon neutralization by 2050. The path and direction to meeting the goal must be sustainable and, at the same time, justifiable."

In this Dec. 20, 2018, file photo, swaths of deforested land is seen on Mount Yukbaek in Dogye District of Samcheok, Gangwon Province, after tree harvesting was approved by the Korea Forest Service to build a wind turbine farm there. Courtesy of Energy Transition Korea

Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), another major activist group in Korea, also criticized the government's plan, saying it wrongfully targeted "old trees" that are actually young and actively growing trees aged between 31 and 40 just because their carbon absorption capability slowed down.

The group said, "The government didn't mention a significant fact that there are signs of ecological succession among Korean forests throughout the past 50 years since the national forestation project began, and that a variety of trees now exist because of that," the group said in a public statement released on May 12. "Old forests not only sustain biodiversity but also contain and isolate absorbed carbon emissions and mitigate climate change impacts. A large-scale tree harvesting will reduce forests' carbon-storing capability and raise the risks of wildfires and landslides."

The group said Korea shouldn't repeat the blunder by the United States' former Donald Trump administration that approved tree harvesting in the country's forest-protected areas after publicly announcing that it would commit to the One Trillion Tree initiative launched in the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to restore the global ecosystem.

"Planting trees is a good thing," Jung Myeong-hee from KFEM's ecological conservation department said. "But what has aroused public ire is that the government didn't mention in its plan it was going to bulldoze trees from 40 percent of the country's commercial forests ― that's 900,000 hectares out of the country's entire commercial forests ― to plant new trees."

In addition to 1.67 million hectares of local forests designated as protected national forests, the KFS designated one third of the country's overall 6.33 million hectares of large forests as commercial forests allowing tree harvest and other forestry activities. Jeong said that a thorough survey must be made even across the commercial forests to check whether there are trees created by ecological succession and thus in need of protection.

Korea Forest Service President Choi Byeong-am speaks during a special briefing at the government complex in Daejeon, May 17, as he explains the agency's controversial tree harvesting plan. Korea Times file

Following the series of condemnations, the KFS on May 17 held a special briefing at its headquarters at the government complex in Daejeon to explain the harvest plan.

The agency said the plan is still under consideration and the government is open to feedback from experts of various fields until September when it will decide on the plan as part of the country's carbon neutralization by 2050.

But the agency added that tree harvesting in the country has been carried out at insignificant levels compared to other OECD member nations. It said only 0.5 percent of the country's total forests are harvested each year on average, which ranks the country 27th among member nations in terms of local tree harvesting.

"Our country's self-sufficiency level of local lumber is only 16 percent," the state agency said. "We rely on New Zealand and other countries with advanced forestry to import trees to meet 84 percent of our country's demand for lumber materials."

The government added that 67 percent of the country's forests are privately owned. "We ask you to understand that trees in those sectors are private property," the government said. "For those in forestry, the ultimate objective in growing trees is to cut them down."

Following the controversy, the Ministry of Environment on May 20 requested the KFS to create a joint group of private experts and government officials that will examine the effectiveness of the controversial plan, according to local reports. Munwha Ilbo, a Korean daily, said the ministry "virtually deferred the forest watchdog's plan because it lacked proof and will likely destroy the environment beyond a reasonable degree."

"The environment ministry demanded the forest service to come up with a new plan that shows how the figures of reduced carbon emission by local forests are calculated, what types of trees will be planted in which regions, and how the plan will affect the country's ecological conservation," the paper said.