Conference
Comparative Afforestation in South and North Korea
Hanns Seidel Foundation Korea invited three South and North Korea Forest experts to share their opinions or experience on afforestation. The first presenter, Dr. Woo-Kyun Lee, a professor at Korea University, gave a short lecture on ‘the history and lessons from afforestation in South Korea.’ He shared the experience of South Korea where the whole country including forests was destroyed during the Korean War. Along with three phases of deforestation, afforestation, stabilization from the 1950s to the 1990s, South Korea has successfully achieved afforestation and become one of the role models in this field. Therefore, in terms of North Korea Forest issues, Dr. Lee asserts that South Korea could share the knowledge and experience to minimalize the failure by providing technical as economic supports as well.
Secondly, Dr. Hyun-Ah Choi, the senior researcher at Hanns Seidel Foundation Korea, gave a presentation on ‘the history and current situation of North Korea’s forests.’ By sharing the EU project that HSF Korea did in North Korea, she explain which kind of educational program they provide and how the results came out. However, she emphasized that support for sustainable forest management is still needed. Lastly, Dr. Joakim Lorbach, the former Forestry Officer and Branch Chief in charge in the Forestry Department of FAO talked about ‘German-Korean Cooperation for the South Korea Afforestation Program.’ As a German afforestation expert in the Korean peninsula, he experienced and leads afforestation projects with German Korean cooperation.
Dr. Lorbach believes that the South Korean efforts to improve their forests could also be a good example for other countries, in particular North Korea, since not only forest conditions are similar.
Dr. Seliger participated in this session as a discussant and asked questions on how to apply examples of South Korea to the North as the food insecurity issue is different. EAEH 2021 conference is a 6th Biennial conference held by Kyoto University, Japan. General Theme is ‘Human and Nature in East Asia: Exploring New Directions in Environmental History.’ Along with three keynote speakers, the various simultaneous session was organized.