Sectoral coordination of forest management policy in North Korean legal system

Abstract

This study aims at understanding policy coordination between the forest sector and non-forest sector for forest management in the overall North Korean laws. It investigates forest policies revealed in the North Korean legal system by searching for forest-related keywords in 239 North Korean Acts. This study focuses on two main goals through the content analysis ethodology. First, it aims to analyze the connection between the Forest Act and non-forest Acts (e.g., Energy Act, Water Resource Management Act, Environment Act, etc.) in terms of forest policy and forest management. Second, the study classifies the categories of forest-related keywords in North Korean Acts based on the four forest ecosystem services (provisioning, supporting, regulating, and cultural services). The research first extracts forest-related keywords in North Korean laws by using the Unification Law Database offered by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Unification in South Korea. Through extracting and categorizing keywords of Acts, this study examines the state of North Korean forest management from a macroscopic viewpoint: the functions of forests that North Korea emphasizes and the forest management issues in law and regulations. Research findings provide a better understanding of the sectoral coordination of forest management policy in the North Korean legal system towards a sustainable society.

Keywords: North Korea(DPRK), North Korean Forest, Forest Policy, Legal Analysis, Ecosystem Services

ID: 3621727