Civic Consciousness Analysis on the Damaged Forest Lands’ Restoration and Use

Abstract

The purpose of study was to find critical problems which needed urgent solution and give policy priorities on the damaged forest lands close to cities through analysis of public perception. A survey was conducted of forest land users at the entrance of Mt. Bibongsan. And the survey consist of the questions of socioeconomic background on its nominal scale and the questions of cultural value, problem, solutions, maintenance methods and main body to drive related policies for the highly damaged Mt. Bibongsan on 5-point Likert scale. The 86.7 percent of respondents were in the over forties' age and 65.3 percent visited the forest land more than two times a month. The early five categories' averaged values were ranging from 3.54 to 3.89. Among the categories, 'Solutions of the damaged forest land,' 'Mt. Bibongsan Restoration method' and 'Main body to drive policies' showed statistical significance in their internal variables from Kruskal-Wallis test. But they did not show exact the ranking between variables and ranking. So thirty variables were reclassified to five categories (F1 ~ F5) by factor analysis. And with using this categories as dependent variables, five regression models were established respectively. The result showed that 'Problem of Mt. Bibongsan (F1a)' could be severer by illegal facilities and soil erosion from farming and 'Solutions of Mt. Bibongsan (F1b)' took the restoration of forest and destruction of aged houses on hillside as priories. For 'Historical resources restoration (F2)', it required to find folk tales and commune with citizen more from restoration of historical resources. To enhance 'Mt. Bibongsan's cultural value (F3)', it was very important to consider citizen's emotion linked to Mt. Bibongsan. As a 'Main body to drive policies (F4)', citizen's active participation is more effective to policy enforcement. 'Maintenance policy projects (F5)' took restoration forest from farmland and forestscape improvement on city-viewed part as urgent projects.

Citizens’ Perceptions and Assessment of an Urban Mountainous Forest Restoration: Nature, History, and Changes

“…Of the respondents, 49.2% were male and 50.8% were female (Table 3). Compared to the results in 2015, the proportion of males tended to increase (Heo et al, 2015).…”

“…Indiscriminate farming, unauthorized buildings, and illegal facilities are scattered, and forest damage and soil erosion are in progress (Heo et al, 2015). Unstable soil clods are scattered throughout the sedimentary rock area, posing a risk of rock falls.…”

“…Socio-demographic background 3 Heo et al, 2015;Heo et al, 2017;Joo and Yeo, 2000;Lee et al, 2017;Lee and Kim, 2018;Yoo et al, 2007 Motive and number of visits 2…”

“…Those over 60 had the largest share (54.3%), followed by those in their 50s (30.3%). The proportion over age 60 has grown steadily, from 30.0% in 2004 to 35.6% in 2015 (Heo et al, 2015;Heo et al, 2017). For reference, the proportion of people aged 60 or older among the total pop-ulation of Jinju City in 2015 and 2019 was 19.7% and 23.3%, respectively (Jinjy City, 2024).…”

“…and the self-employed (11.4%). In 2015, however, the largest group was still housewives at 31.1%, but they were followed by the employed (23.6%) and others (22.6%; Heo et al, 2015). This change is suggested to be caused by an aging population, more retirees, and monotonous leisure facilities and services as well as an increase in leisure time.…”