| South Korea is another example of fighting poverty that stopped and completely reversed deforestation. Korean peninsula in general went through extreme deforestation under Japan, especially during the WW2 era and Korean War, as supply of coal was cut off from the civilian population and redirected to war effort by Japan and Korea. In order to get fuel supply that was needed to cook food and heat homes, local hills were cleared of trees by locals. If you watch video footage of the Korean War 1950 - 53, the hills are completely devoid of trees. The trees are missing because they had all be cut down for fuel. If you talk to any older Korean men who were teens up until mid 1960s, they all remember walking 1 - 2 hrs one way up into the hills to collect firewood, piled mountain high on their A-frames (in Korean, jigae). Once South Korea started getting better off, they went to coal, oil, natural gas, and then electricity for fuel source. The South Korean government "Korea Forest Service" ministry is completely focused on restoring the depleted forests. And they seem to have done reasonably well. |