Korea Forest Service

The Korea Forest Service is a central administrative agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFR), responsible for protecting and nurturing forests, increasing forest resources, developing forest products, conducting research on forest management and improvement, and is located in Daejeon Government Complex. In the past, during the national forestation campaign from 1973 to 1986, it was temporarily under the Ministry of Home Affairs (now the Ministry of the Interior and Safety), but returned to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1987. However, as the agency's work was focused solely on maintaining and managing successful national forestation policies, questions were raised about its necessity for a period of time. Currently, the agency has transformed its identity into one that strives to generate continuous income through forest resources.

It is one of the government agencies that is highly likely to expand in the event of future North-South unification. In North Korea, there are many mountains, and it is expected that regional forest offices will be expanded to promote afforestation projects centering around Mount Mindungsan.

The Korea National Park Service, which is under the Ministry of Environment, had a long-standing conflict with the Korea Forest Service. Both agencies are in charge of forest-related work, but there were frequent conflicts due to differences in specific business objectives. While the Korea Forest Service also invests in forest development to promote forestry, the Korea National Park Service's primary objective is forest protection. Therefore, in 2012, an article was published between the two organization called "Let's Get Along."^[1]

Furthermore, it has a cooperative relationship with the Cultural Heritage Administration. High-quality lumber is essential for restoring, maintaining, and repairing traditional cultural properties, and in particular, Korean pine, also known as the "Geumgang Pine," is still a rare species. Therefore, the Korea Forest Service and the Cultural Heritage Administration are working together to create and manage Geumgang Pine plantations.

The current head of the organization is Nam Sung-hyun, who began his term in May 2022.^[2]