Audit Reveals Rampant Private Contracting and Poor Construction of Forest Roads
Majority of Inspected Roads Lack Required Landslide Prevention Structures
Authorities Criticized for Prioritizing Quantity Over Quality in Forest Road Projects
The Korea Forest Service has been found to have signed habitual private contracts with forest cooperatives that lack sufficient construction management personnel, resulting in numerous cases of poorly constructed forest roads (rindo?roads within forests), including the failure to install structures intended to prevent landslides. Critics have pointed out that the authorities focused solely on increasing the quantity of forest roads, neglecting measures to prevent poor construction.
According to the audit report on the "Status of Management and Supervision of Forest Projects" released by the Board of Audit and Inspection on this day, of the 1,531 forest roads constructed nationwide between 2021 and 2023, inspections were conducted on 135 roads, and it was found that 103 of them (76% of the total) had not installed the legally required structures.
Under the Enforcement Rules of the Forest Resources Act, when constructing forest roads, if the length of an embankment slope (a sloped surface made by piling up soil) exceeds 5 meters, structures such as retaining walls or stone embankments must be installed to prevent landslides.
Additionally, the Forest Resources Act stipulates that forest roads may only be constructed if they pass a feasibility evaluation, and if more than 10% of the route consists of steep slopes (with a gradient of 35 degrees or more), earth removal construction (removing soil generated from excavation) must be carried out. However, the audit found that some local governments visually estimated the slope, an item in the feasibility evaluation, and assessed it as lower than it actually was, resulting in the construction of forest roads on 15 routes that did not actually meet the feasibility requirements.
In the case of 38 newly constructed forest roads on steep terrain, inspections of earth removal construction on steep sections (24.2 km) revealed that 12.5 km had not undergone the required earth removal construction.
The Forest Resources Act also stipulates that the longitudinal gradient (the difference in height along the road surface) of a forest road should not exceed 14%, but may be up to 18% if the road surface is paved. However, from 2021 to last year, in three provinces including Chungcheongnam-do, 311 new forest roads were constructed, and 11.9 km of these had a longitudinal gradient of 14?18% but were completed without road surface paving, while 3.8 km were paved but exceeded the maximum allowed gradient of 18%.
The Board of Audit and Inspection stated, "We have requested that the Korea Forest Service take precautions to prevent poor construction of forest roads and instructed them to check whether poorly constructed roads are vulnerable to landslides and to establish measures to prevent such disasters."
In particular, in 2011, the Korea Forest Service established a plan to improve the system by expanding competitive bidding and managing the maximum order amount based on the number of technicians held by forest cooperatives, in order to prevent poor construction of forest projects resulting from the habitual practice of private contracts with forest cooperatives. However, it was found that regional forest offices and local governments continued the practice of private contracts with forest cooperatives that lacked sufficient construction management personnel, citing reasons such as easier post-construction management. The proportion of private contracts between regional forest offices or local governments and forest cooperatives rose from 87.2% in 2019 to 95.5% in 2023. Forest cooperatives contributed to poor construction by assigning a single site manager to oversee up to six construction sites or allowing unqualified personnel to manage sites.
Furthermore, effective sanctions for poorly executed forest projects were found to be lacking. The Board of Audit and Inspection explained, "We have notified the Korea Forest Service to expand competitive bidding and implement effective sanctions for poor performance to prevent excessive private contracting from lowering the quality of forest projects," adding, "We have also requested disciplinary action against one individual involved in improperly handling landslide cause investigations."
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