⌲ Look at South Korea!

As we ponder over our abysmal failure to either increase or improve our forest cover, let us look at what South Korea has done to restore and build its forests. Remember the Comptroller and Auditor General of India told Parliament in August 2026 that the Government had failed to meet its targets to increase and improve forest cover in India, by nearly 98%. A 98 percent deficit? spoken plainly, zilch had been done. 

Now to Korea. During the 35 years of Japanese rule in Korea the country’s forests suffered severe and deliberate destruction due to aggressive commercial logging and extraction of timber for use by Japan during the two world wars. Worse was to follow when what forests were left were to face the depredations of the Korean War. By the end of the wars, almost 80 percent of Korea's forests were destroyed or severely degraded. 

To the credit of the war ravaged South Korean government, it made forest recovery a national imperative, initiating a centrally coordinated afforestation campaign in 1973. Through large-scale planting, public engagement, and intensive post-planting care, forest cover and quality steadily improved. By 2020, the overall volume of all living trees in South Korea’s forests had increased nearly 30 times from its degraded state. That is a stupendous achievement! 

South Korea borrowed an implementation-management strategy from industry used for problem solving and continuous improvement. It involves four iterative stages, Codified as PDCA: Plan → Do → Check → Act

1. Strategic planning (Plan)

2. Implementation (Do)

3. Performance evaluation (Check), and 

4. Corrective action (Act)

It was used successfully in reforesting South Korea. It’s a template anyone can use. Is the IndianGovernment listening?