• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.87 no.3
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• pp.372-382
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• 1998

This study aims to reveal the dissolving process around the customary common right to forest utilization through a series of policies consolidating the modern forest ownerships in Korea under the rule of Japanese Imperialism. The existence of the customary common right to forest utilization has been widely recognized since the old time. Common profitable actions in a certain area have been given to village residents to gain useful materials such as forage, timber, fuelwood, wild animals, soil, grazing, and quarry in forest, which were necessarily required for their own daily life as customary commodities. This right was divided into the right around common forests and special easement in forests. Therefore, the common forests applicable of these rights were classified into village common forests and special easement forests. Especially, General-Government granted the national forests in pre-emption to a private(88.6%, 2,463,555chungbo) or public(12.1%, 299,050chungbo). After all, most of the common forests were transferred into national forests in earlier stage and then later into public ar private forests by Japanese Imperialism.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.89 no.2
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• pp.260-274
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• 2000

The purposes of this study were to reveal the backgrounds, process, and evaluation of the "Forest Survey Project(1910)" and to determine the influence of the "Comments on the Classification of Forest Land Ownership in Korea(1910)", which was based upon the results of the project, on forest policy in the early period of the General-Government of Korea. The forest survey project was conducted by two Japanese, Kiuchi and Saito, to understand the forest distribution in the Korean Peninsula by ownership and stand. However, the accuracy of the project was very low due to the lack of budget and time. Especially, village forests and special easement forests in the northern peninsula were classified into the Nation Forest without Administration caused by the informality and arbitrariness of the survey. Nevertheless, the General-Government of Korea used the results of the survey for establishing the forest policy on the classification of the forest land ownership in Korea at that time. The "Comments on the Classification of Forest Land Ownership in Korea(1910)" was based upon the results of the survey as mentioned above. The comments was realized as colonial forest policy through the Forest Ordinance in 1911 and a series of policies consolidating the modern forest ownership. To conclude, the "Forest Survey Project" was used to establish colonial forest policy in the early of the General-Government of Korea while its accuracy was truly low. Moreover, the "Comments on the Classification of Forest Land Ownership in Korea" had a great influence on the formulating the directions and details of colonial forest policy in Korea under the rule of Japanese Imperialism.