• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.123-148
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• 2012

Deforestation and forest degradation in Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) accelerated from the mid 1980s through the economic crisis in 1990s and is still happening. DPRK has conducted afforestation and reforestation activities against this trend. However there are not many official documents on achievement of forest rehabilitation in DPRK. "Rodong Shinmun," as an official newspaper published by North Korean Workers Party, represents governmental policies and is one of a few accessible information on DPRK which is available in Republic of Korea (ROK). This paper aims to investigate the national forest policies of the DPRK represented in Rodong Shinmun. Total of 499 articles using the word 'Sanlim (forest)' and 'Rimsan (forest product)' in the title of articles were selected for content analysis. The national forest plans and forest policy instruments contained in the selected articles were analyzed. The subjects of represented forest policies were classified into four groups; forestation, forest management, land management and forest protection or conservation. The focus of forest policy was changed from economic utilization of forest resources such as timber production in the 1990s to forest protection in the 2000s. Rodong Shinmun reported more frequently about regulatory instruments and informational instruments than the economic instruments. Official commendation and awards were the main incentives given to the people who contributed to forestry achievements. In particular, forest policies were emphasized by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and afforestation and forest protection were described as patriotic activities in the Rodong Shinmun. In conclusion, this research revealed that Rodong Shinmun plays a role as a means for introducing, propagating and instigating forest policies in the society of the DPRK. The findings help to understand the forest policies of the DPRK which could be useful when designing development aids for DPRK.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.1
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• pp.55-65
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• 2009

Annex I parties continued its consideration of how to address, the definitions, modalities, rules and guidelines for the treatment of Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol by the year of 2009. In the AWG-KP conference held in Accra, Ghana in 2008, four alternatives (gross-net carbon accounting, net-net with base year or base period accounting, net-net with forward looking baseline accounting, and land-based accounting method) for negotiations were decided in order to revise gross-net accounting method applied during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. In this study, alternative scenarios are set in consideration with reporting system (voluntary or compulsory), discount factors and cap about these three alternatives except for the method of net-net with forward looking baseline accounting, and then estimates the Removal Unit (RMU) among the countries. In the case that article 3.4 activities under the Kyoto Protocol revises from voluntary reporting to mandatory reporting, it is estimated that the loss of RMU would be huge in Russia, Australia, New Zealand, as well as Canada potentially. Net-net with base year or base period carbon accounting and land-based carbon accounting method have big difference of RMU in accordance with the base year or the base period. So the more unfavorable the country with a lot of old-age forests was, the closer the base year or period comes to the commitment period in the context of RMU. If it is getting lowered for the current rate of 85% in discount factors, RMU is getting higher to the whole countries. Therefore in Korea with little potential for afforestation and reforestation, there was the most sensitive response to the change of discount factors. Post-2012 LULUCF hereafter, it is strongly expected for the succession of current carbon accounting system which is voluntary reporting of gross-net carbon accounting and the activity for article 3.4. Other carbon accounting method is hard to accept in aspect that there is big differentiated interests among the countries and it is required enormous cost and time to develop reliable method. Provide for Post-2012 mandatory greenhouse gas reduction, Korea needs to have a competitive negotiation strategies differentiated from Annex I countries. The most reliable alternative would be to lower the discounting factors about the activities for forest management.