Hwacheon County, striving to solidify private forest management... pushing forward with forest management service outsourcing.

(Hongcheon=Yonhap News) Reporter Im Bo-yeon = Gangwon Hongcheon County is actively pushing forward the "2026 Forest Business Management Outsourcing" business to enhance the professionalism of forestry operations and to manage private forests efficiently through a public-private partnership model for forest management. To this end, last month on the 30th, Hongcheon County and the Forest Association signed an agreement for "Forest Business Management Outsourcing." The agreement aims to improve the quality of operations by utilizing the technical expertise of specialized forestry organizations and to establish a field-centered, close-knit management system to revitalize private forest management. This year, the scope of management outsourcing is set at 1,584 hectares (with a budget of 5 billion won) for afforestation and forest maintenance. The Forest Association will be responsible for all practical tasks, including obtaining consent from forest owners, issuing orders, and on-site supervision, while the county will handle project approval and guidance and supervision tasks. Hongcheon County plans to apply the management know-how of the "Cheong-Il Leading Forest Management Complex," which received excellent results in the evaluation by the Korea Forest Service, to all private forest operations. Through this, the county aims to improve the design and construction quality of afforestation and forest maintenance sites and to enhance the value of forest resources through precise process management. Additionally, starting this year, the "Forestry Material Support Business" and other specialized forestry policies will be integrated and operated in a three-dimensional manner with the management outsourcing business. The strategy is to alleviate the management burden on forest owners and to increase the satisfaction of administrative services from project application to post-management. Hongcheon County has been recognized for making its forestry operations solid and substantial since it introduced the public-private partnership model for forest management as the first in the province in 2019, and has been continuously pushing forward its operations for eight years. Park Jong-cheol, head of the County's Forest and Green Space Division, said on the 3rd, "We will improve the professionalism of private forest management and cultivate healthy forest resources," and "In the future, we will focus our efforts on increasing the real benefits of foresters through field-centered forest administration."