(Daejeon=Yonhap News) Reporter Park Joo-young = It has been revealed that there are dozens more cases similar to that of Baek Jong-won's The Bon Korea, where the Yedeok Academy, of which Baek Jong-won is a director, escaped punishment for illegal land conversion as the statute of limitations (five years) had passed.
According to materials received by Representative Yoon Joon-byung (Democratic Party, Jeonbuk Jeongeup-Gochang) from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on the 20th, illegal land conversion over the past five years amounted to 11,251 cases, covering 1,921 hectares.
The damages caused by this amounted to 234.7 billion won.
According to the current Mountainous Areas Management Act, permission must be obtained for land conversion, and violations are punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won.
The Ministry of Forestry is taking action to prevent forest damage by cracking down on illegal land conversion, but it is said to be insufficient.
In fact, Yedeok Academy built a cafeteria in the early 2000s without obtaining permission for land conversion, including forest land, and the illegal land conversion was only revealed in October last year following a submission to the National Archives, but due to the statute of limitations, the investigation was concluded in March of last year with no prosecution.
Representative Yoon discovered that there were 24 more cases where the statute of limitations had expired and punishment was avoided.
Representative Yoon Joon-byung urged that "Illegal land conversion is a serious crime that increases the risk of disasters such as landslides and destroys the public function of forests, yet due to the late detection by the Ministry of Forestry, there are continuous cases where punishment is avoided" and called for "strengthening the enforcement capacity to prevent the occurrence of a second or third case of Baek Jong-won and Yedeok Academy."