Korea Forest Service: "Prepare for Retirement in the '100-Year Era' with Mountain Pension"

Sanji Pension is establishing itself as a means of retirement preparation for private forest owners.

The Korea Forest Service announced on the 22nd that it has achieved the annual target of 742 hectares for this year’s ‘Sanji Pension-type Private Forest Purchase Project.’ This project is implemented on the premise that when a forest owner sells private forest land to the Korea Forest Service, the purchase price is paid monthly in the form of a pension over 10 years. The purpose of the project is to increase the state-managed national forests while enabling forest owners to prepare securely for their retirement through private forests.

Previously, since introducing the Sanji Pension system in 2021, the Korea Forest Service has gathered forest owners’ opinions every year. Through this process, the system was improved by removing the minimum area requirement for sales and allowing up to 40% of the purchase price to be paid upfront at the time of contract, thereby encouraging the activation of the Sanji Pension-type Private Forest Purchase Project.

Since July, the criteria for saleable land have been relaxed by including ‘management forest land’ where forest projects such as afforestation, forest maintenance, and forest road installation are possible, in addition to ‘public interest forest land’ where development activities are restricted. As a result, as of this month, 21% of all private forests purchased by the Korea Forest Service are management forest land.

In particular, this year the Korea Forest Service improved the pension payment method from paying the remaining 60% of the purchase price (after the initial 40% upfront payment) monthly over 10 years on a ‘principal equal installment’ basis to a ‘principal and interest equal installment’ method that reflects interest and land value appreciation compensation, thereby strengthening the protection of forest owners’ property rights and stable financial management.

This has maintained the original intent of the system while increasing forest owners’ participation. As evidence of this, the number of forest owners participating in the Sanji Pension-type Private Forest Purchase Project has been increasing every year. The Korea Forest Service expects the scale of private forest purchases to exceed the initial target by the end of this year.

For more detailed information regarding private forest sale applications and purchase price determination, inquiries can be made through the national forest management office in charge of the sale target forest land, or by referring to the ‘We Buy Private Forests’ announcement posted on the Korea Forest Service website.

Park Eun-sik, Director of the Forest Industry Policy Bureau at the Korea Forest Service, said, “The ultimate goal of promoting the Sanji Pension-type Private Forest Purchase Project is to efficiently manage privately owned forest land facing difficulties in forest management by converting it into national forest land and to create economic value for forest owners,” adding, “We hope for the active interest and participation of private forest owners in the Sanji Pension system, which realizes public interest functions.”