The Korea Forest Service(KFS) and the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) signed a MOU on March 13 in Rome. Under the MOU, Korea is to make annual contributions of 200,000 USD to SFM MAR project as matching fund for 4 years from 2007 to 2010 and FAO is to develop SFM criteria and indicators in Asia-Pacific area in cooperation with Japan and Korea.






Lee Soo-hwa, Deputy Chief of KFS and Tesfai Tecle, Assistant Director General of the Technical Cooperation Department, FAO signed the MOU, allowing for FAO’s request for Korea’s participation in developing international cooperation programmes. Japan supports FAO with a five-year cooperative programme, providing about 3 million dollars and has asked for Korea’s financial and technical support on the SFM MAR project.






※ FAO SFM MAR project


o Title : The Strengthening Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting on Sustainable Forest Management in Asia


o Goal : Develop a globally harmonized forest -related national Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting system and implementation guidelines.


o Fund : contributions from Asia countries.


-Japan : US$ 2,810,000 (Five Year Period)


-KFS : matching fund


o Project duration : five years, Dec. 2005.12~ Dec. 2010


- First two years (’05.12~’07.12) development phase :


development of a database and internationally recognised guidelines for MAR and establishment of national plan to facilitate implementation.


- Next three years (’07.12~’10.12) implementation phase :


implementation of the MAR on SFM






※ Benefits from project participation


o It would provide opportunities to have SFM-related experience and technical exchange on the application of international SFM criteria and indicators to Korea’s policies.


o Application of SFM criteria and indicators to overseas plantation


- Now forests in Korea account for 64% of the total territorial land. However, most trees are aged under 30 years so tree tending is required.


- 90% of timber demand is imported so we are expanding overseas plantation. Expectedly, the participation of this programme can boost up methodology of overseas plantation based on SFM C&I : 118,000 ha of overseas plantation in total ( 16,000 ha in Australia, 9,000 ha in New Zealand, 11,000 ha in the Solomon Islands, 13,000ha in Vietnam, 61,000 ha in Indonesia, 5,000ha in China and 3,000 ha in Paraguay); Plan on 500,000 ha of overseas plantation in Indonesia


o Match the international efforts on SFM


- The United Nations has made efforts in expanding SFM but each country and region has different situations. Therefore, it needs to develop SFM enhancement programmes suitable for the Asian region.






During the eighteenth session of the Committee on Forestry (March 12~16), KFS informed the conference which will be held in September for establishment of North East Asia Forest Network among Korea, China, Japan and Mongolia, and explained that participants from 4 countries would discuss joint measures against dust and sandstorms, wildfire and pine-wilt disease in the conference.






International Cooperation Team


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