산지관리 법제의 현황과 개선과제

Current Status and Direction of Legislation on Mountainous Districts Management

국토 면적의 64%를 차지하고 있는 산지는 우리나라 최대의 부존자원으로서 지속가능성이 강조되기 시작한 이후 그 잠재적 가치는 더욱 부각되고 있다. 그러나 우리나라의 산지는 경사도가 높고 지형이 험준하며, 변화가 심한 대륙성 기후와 여름철의 집중 호우 등으로 인해 토양의 풍화작용과 침식이 발생하기 쉬운 특징을 지니고 있다. 급속한 도시화에 따른 도시적 토지수요의 증대로 인하여 산지의 효율적 이용과 개발에 대한 당위성이 지속적으로 증대되고 있다. 특히 부동산 가격의 상승원인 중 하나로 이용 가능한 토지의 절대부족이라는 쟁점이 부각되면서 가용토지 공급원으로써 산지이용에 대한 관심이 더욱 증대되고 있다. 산지를 둘러싼 급속한 환경변화는 단순히 보전해야 할 지역으로만 여겨져 단편적 이용에 그쳤던 산지에 대하여 새로운 토지자원으로의 재조명을 요구하게 되었고, 토지자원으로서의 새로운 역할정립을 검토할 시기가 되었다.

The government has changed mountains which became bare across the country after the liberation from Japan and the Korean War into ones filled with trees through afforestation policies. As a consequence, Korea is now credited as a world-class model nation that has succeeded in afforestation. However, mountainous districts have been managed mainly for preservation so far and have been only allowed to be restrictively used, which has kept mountainous districts from being systematically or comprehensively managed across the whole land. An increase in demand for urban land according to rapid urbanization continuously demands the need for efficient use and development of mountainous districts. Meanwhile, once mountainous districts are destroyed, the subsequent impact is so huge and it takes a long time to recover from such destroyed state; therefore, sustainable management is required to secure harmony between preservation and utilization. As the pursuit of “Green Growth” has recently become the interest of the times, the efficient use of mountainous districts based on sustainability has begun to be regarded as a critical task even in terms of territorial use and real estate policies. While afforestation was of great interest as a basic resource in the past industrial society, the area and range of forest administration is gradually expanded at the present day. Not only may every forest resource play a meaningful role as the country’s economic growth engine, but tangible and intangible asset values which forest resources can create are also increasing as never imagined. Considering such tangible and intangible values of forest administration, we need to historically examine the change in forest policy paradigms from macro perspectives in order to renew the perception of forests and to map a desirable future direction. It seems to be unreasonable to emphasize only forest preservation in Korea of which the territory is mostly covered with mountains; accordingly, “development and preservation” or “preservation through development” is needed. For sustainable development balancing between development and preservation, plans and policies for strategic land management are required. Like this, rapid environmental changes surrounding mountainous districts shed new light on mountainous districts, which have been just regarded as the areas to be preserved and have been only used fragmentarily, as new land resources. Furthermore, it is time to think about the establishment of new roles of mountainous districts as new land resources.