The Korea Forest Service and ASEAN ministers adopted a joint declaration for promoting regional cooperation at a meeting ahead of the Korea-ASEAN Commemorative Summit in Busan, the KFS said Thursday.

In particular, the declaration outlined an agreement to create a collective response system for forest disasters and to expand the size and scope of Asian Forest Cooperation Organization activities.

On Wednesday ― the first day of the two-day meeting ― the KFS held a series of bilateral conferences with its counterparts from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia to sign MOUs on forest cooperation with each of them. On the following day, 11 forest-related ministers and vice ministers, along with other high-ranking ASEAN officials, gathered to discuss pending regional forest issues. 

“The ASEAN region contains 14 percent of the world’s forests, but these areas have degraded due to excessive industrial development and growing populations,” said KFS Minister Shin Won-sop in a keynote speech.

He stressed the need for ASEAN states to collaborate through the AFoCo Agreement and to resolve issues such as climate change, biodiversity conservation and land degradation.

“Such regional cooperation has proven to be effective and it is now time for us to take a step further and establish a bigger AFoCo, which we expect to play a pivoting role.”

South Korea’s first instance of forest cooperation with the ASEAN states was with Indonesia, which occupies 3 percent of the earth’s forest surface and 18 percent of the world’s land-based biodiversity.

“Over the past years, we have put reforestation ahead of industrialization and modernization, realizing that we first need to rehabilitate our land in order to put an end to repeated natural disasters,” the KFS head said in a separate speech Thursday.

Keeping these goals in mind, the KFS and ASEAN states announced a declaration pledging unity on forest issues in Korea and ASEAN.

The statement also expressed concerns on the negative effect of climate change on the ecosystem, forest resources and environment and demanded that the member states respond actively to pending issues.

The participants reiterated the concept of AFoCo, an idea suggested by Korea in the Korea-ASEAN Commemorative Summit 2009.

The organization kicked off in 2011 and is aiming to expand beyond Southeast Asia into the Middle East and Central Asia by 2016, according to officials.

“This year’s special ministerial meeting will add momentum to the regional talks on forest cooperation,” Shin said.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)