한계농지의 산지전용을 위한 정책제언: 전용규제에 대한 법?제도를 중심으로

한계농지를 산지로 전용하기 위한 규제와 정책 대안을 제시한다.

The policy interest in effective and environment-friendly management of idle farmland is growing recently, and, in particular, the conversion of marginal farmland to forest is receiving a great deal of attention as a policy option. For a successful implementation of conversion policy, however, the careful consideration on the legislative regulations on the conversion between farmland and forestland need to be proceeded.

The purpose of this study is 1) to understand the legislative changes regarding the conversions of farmland and forestland under the land use zoning system, 2) to identify the barriers in converting farmland to forestland under the current zoning system, and 3) to derive some policy suggestions for the conversion of marginal farmland to forestland. We do not observe much conversions between farmland and forestland over the years and, in addition, discover that there have been few legislative obstacles in the conversion between farmland and forestland.

This finding, we believe, is due to the fact that the most regulations have been focused to prevent farmland and/or forestland from converting to developed uses. Therefore, it is likely that the conversions between farmland and forestland have been affected by economic factors rather than the government regulations. Based on the our findings, we suggest some policies to facilitate the conversion to forestland. First, since the target of the policy is the marginal farmland, an effective instrument may be the policies that link current large- and/or small scale marginal farmland development projects to tree planting.

Second, the direct economic incentives to landowners which induce voluntary afforestation may be one policy option. Lastly, different views on marginal farmland management between the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Forest Service should be resolved for the most.