Forestry cooperation between Korea and ASEAN will now be further strengthened.

The Korea Forest Service (KFS) met with delegations from Myanmar's Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry, Cambodia's Forestry Administration and Laos' Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to sign MOUs and to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation on conservation and the forestry industry, on December 10 at the 2014 Special ASEAN-ROK Ministerial Meeting on Forestry in Busan.

The KFS signed an MOU with its Myanmar counterpart to cooperate on investing in reforestation and to fight the effects of climate change. Myanmar is particularly promising due to its large areas of industrial reforestation and timber management. Myanmar has a lot of forests, about five times more than Korea, as well as an abundant supply of teak, a tropical hardwood tree.


With Cambodia, the KFS signed an MOU to cooperate on reducing emissions from deforestation and from forest degradation in developing countries, or "REDD+." As the name suggests, it's a program aimed at reducing emissions and to foster conservation, the sustainable management of forests and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Cambodia is known as one of the most active countries in the U.N.'s REDD+ program. The two countries plan to combine Cambodia's know-how and efforts at the program with Korea's cooperation experience with Indonesia on the forestry industry. Together, they aim to make progress on the REDD+ projects and to secure more carbon emission reductions (CERs).


Finally, the first Korea-Laos Forest Cooperative Committee has also been held. The two delegations discussed a variety of issues of mutual interest, including bilateral investments in reforestation, timber management, joint research into the preservation of plant seeds, the development of new seeds and their preservation, cooperation on REDD+ projects and the exchange of workers.



By Lee Seung-ah
Photos: Korea Forest Service
Korea.net Staff Writer
slee27@korea.kr