The Korea Forest Service (KFS), led by Minister LIM Sang-seop, announced on 23 July that it attended the 27th Session of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Committee on Forestry held in Rome, Italy, from the 22nd to the 26th (local time), as the government delegation to discuss forestry agendas with approximately 120 member countries.

The FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO), held biennially, is one of the largest fora in the forestry sector where international forest policy objectives are shared, and forest-related information and statistics for each continent are presented.

The theme of this 27th session is "Accelerating Forest Solutions through Innovation" and major agenda items include the 2024 State of the World's Forests (SOFO) report, agriculture and forestry linkages, enhancing the contribution of forests to bioeconomy, integrated forest fire management, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and the host country for the 16th World Forestry Congress.

On July 19th, ahead of COFO27, the KFS introduced Korea's excellent wood policies under the title “Korea's Experience and Challenges on Sustainable Wood” with other member countries including Canada, Austria, Australia, and international organizations attending the event. This included topics such as Korea's reforestation, promoting public awareness to reverse misconceptions on harvesting, sustainable wood-friendly urban policies, and the Verification System for Timber Legality.

On the first day of the plenary session, the FAO welcomed the draft of the 2024 SOFO report, which is released biennially. Korea explained its innovative policies and ICT-based step-by-step forest fire response system, from forest fire prevention to post fire restoration, and highlighted its pivotal role in the international forest fire management field through the AFFIRM (Assuring the Future of Forests with Integrated Forest Risk Management) mechanism in collaboration with the FAO.

During the plenary session, the KFS plans to actively promote major policies such as the "Forest Bio-industry Vitalization Plan" and share Korea's core international forest cooperation project, the Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM), which contributes to achieving the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

NAM Song Hee, Director General of the International Affairs Bureau at the KFS, stated, “We aim to explore international strategies that enable co-existence by sharing Korea's advanced forest policies and achievements at multilateral fora such as the UN.” and added that, “We aim to strengthen international forest cooperation with all 120 member countries to establish a sustainable forest management system.”