A Study on Developing the Index for Forest Sustainability in Korea

摘要

This study was carried out to find out the possibility for developing methodologies on the index for forest Sustainability and to assess sustainability indices of metropolitan and provincial districts based on conditions of their forest health and management programmes in Korea. To find out some indicators to be utilized in developing the forest sustainability indices, total 84 possible indicators were selected and combined from 69 major programmes contained in the 4th Forest Development Plan and theForest Vision for 21st Century and other 15 indicators selected separately from other forest policies. Those candidate indicators were reviewed throughly under evaluation processes and 33 indicators were finally chosen in developing the forest sustainability indices. Those indicators were classified into 3 categories, namely indicators for pressure, state, and response. Forest health could be represented by pressure and state indicators, while forest management programmes could be assessed by responseindicators. Scores of importance for each indicator were assigned through Delphi survey and analyzed to project the extra weight value by summing rankings given to each index and applied to the standardized value of each index. Forest sustainability indices of metropolitan and provincial districts were analyzed and compared, based on relevant data of the year 2002. This study was kind a preliminary one in forest sustainability index and the names of metropolitan and provincial districts were not identified in this study. The indices could be very valuable in assessing quantitatively the level of forest health and intensity of forest management programmes in each districts and comparisons could be made among them, if all self-governing districts agree unanimously on the indices of forest sustainability and relevant indicators chosen in the study.