Success Factors of National-Scale Forest Restorations in South Korea, Vietnam, and China

Abstract

The total global forest area is decreasing significantly, yet stories of successful large-scale forest restoration are still scarce. In the 1980s, when properly designed concepts and methodologies were absent, state-led, large-scale restoration projects in lower-income countries (LICs) in Asia were already successful. These then LICs—South Korea, Vietnam, and China—experienced dramatic forest land use changes driven by different socioeconomic and political developments, from deforestation and forest degradation to reforestation and ecological restoration. This study examines the institutional settings of each country’s restoration programs, focusing on the inputs of the external factors, their effects on the relevant action arena, and their payment mechanisms. By conducting critical comparisons between three country cases, we found that the ability of nations that had implemented reforestation programs to restore their forests was often influenced by external variables, which included biophysical conditions, local community attributes, and local, state, and federal rules. The result of this research provides practical implications and contributes to the body of literature comparing restoration cases from Asian countries, which have rarely been investigated.

The Dilemma of Scale: competing imperatives for global restoration

“…The 5 Million Hectares Reforestation Program (5MHRP) in Vietnam exemplifies this negative feedback loop. This large‐scale, internationally funded, and state‐mandated campaign promised to substantially increase the country's forest cover as a strategy for social—and especially rural—development (Choi et al 2019). Yet, as McElwee (2009) demonstrates, this centralized project not only negatively and disproportionately impacted women and poor households; it also decreased environmental function by supplanting diverse ecosystems with monocrop exotic tree plantations.…”

“…Yet, as McElwee (2009) demonstrates, this centralized project not only negatively and disproportionately impacted women and poor households; it also decreased environmental function by supplanting diverse ecosystems with monocrop exotic tree plantations. Despite these pernicious outcomes, 5MHRP is still touted as a successful example of “the importance of international‐level cooperation” (Choi et al 2019). The failure of the international restoration community to meaningfully address the unintended casualties of 5MHRP diminished local confidence in the integrity of the project.…”

Effects of Wood Product Utilization on Climate Change Mitigation in South Korea

“…The domestic sawn wood in South Korea is mostly used in the civil engineering and transportation industries, where the lifetime of sawn wood is relatively short. This is due to the low quality of domestic roundwood in South Korea, as most timber is cut at young ages for reforestation with more productive species, since most current forest stand were established for rapid restoration of once deforested lands [48][49][50][51]. In order to efficiently increase carbon stock in HWPs with current short-lived usage, the extension of the usage duration of wood resources by increasing HWPs in long-lived industries, such as building, has been suggested [52].…”

Why Is Inter-Korean Forestry Cooperation Hard to Accomplish?

“…However, temporal visitations and advice made by dozens of experts cannot produce successful reforestation projects at the national level. Large-scale reforestation projects need not only money and labor but policy consistency and political will as well, as witnessed in the successful South Korean case (Lee 2013;Choi, Jeong, and Kim 2019). Even with a positive attitude change in North Korea toward its counterpart, the transferability of South Korea's experiences and technical support to North Korea remains questionable.…”