• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.90 no.3
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• pp.398-412
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to examine the roles of the forest-land registry system in the Forest Law of 1908 and the effects this system had on the colonial forest-land policy used in Korea under the influence of Japanese Imperialism. This was started under the Profit-sharing Forest System which was one of the policies for disposing of the Korean national forests. The purpose of this system was to establish forest-land ownership, a fundamental human right. This system was enforced by the Japanese Colonial Government without regard to the customary and important right of Koreans to use the forests, and without considering the distinction between national and private forests. Koreans understood that this system was a warning sign of a tax being imposing on forest-land owners. Furthermore, Koreans thought the Japanese were using this system to deprive them of their forest-land. The strata of Koreans reporting ownership were very limited and included the intellectual(upper-middle) class, higher officials in counties and townships, relatives and relations of these officials, and survey agents. In particular the actual owners could not submit a report registering their land in this system because the required survey cost more than the value of the forest-land. Within the time period specified by the Japanese Colonial Government, about 520,000 registries were reported involving 2.2 million Jung-bo(.9917 hectare) with most of these coming during the last five months of reporting period. Koreans made a reasonable request to extend the deadline, but it was refused. After the reporting period expired there were no follow-up measures such as verification of the reported registrations nor establishment of boundaries between national and private forests. According to Article 19 in the Forest Law of 1908 about 14 million Jung-bo, which was not registered within the reporting period was nationalized. The colonial forest-land policy used in Korea by the Japanese Colonial Government was as follows : (1) to create a large number of national forests in the early period of their rule, (2) to divide these national forests into indispensible national forests and dispensible national forests, and (3) to transfer ownership of the dispensible national forests to colonial Japanese. To achieve the latter, the occupational government needed a method to insure ownership. They devised a tree-planting scheme in which the national forests classified as disposable were "loaned" and then transferred to these Japanese. The actual Korean owners claimed title to this forest-land and asked for the eviction of the new owners but the Japanese occupation government rejected these suits using the excuse that previous Korean owners did not submit the required registration report within the specified time period. In short the Principle of Forest-land Registry was used as a means to consolidate the forest-lands of Korea and distribute large portions of it to Japanese citizens after seizing it from the rightful Korean owners.