Forest land contains forest which provides public welfare functions including absorbtion of carbon dioxide, purification of water, prevention of soil erosion, maintenance and preservation of ecosystem and leisure and healing. The public welfare functions of forest land have been preserved through various systems including designating Conservation Forest Land, Forest Land Conversion Permit System, and Alternative Afforestation System. However, it has been difficult to prevent demand for speculative development of forest land to achieve profit through development, as the difference between economic benefits from forest land preservation and those from forest land development is significant. As a result, there is a limit to preserve public welfare functions of forest land.
As forest land conversion and forest devastation are pointed out as major causes of climate change and the importance of forest environment is highlighted, the need for improvement of various public welfare functions of forest land by preventing reckless development is increasing.
Accordingly, Emission Trading System and Forest Carbon Offset System are implemented as a way to improve public welfare functions of forest, but these systems have limitation in that the systems target only carbon absorption. Therefore measures to cover various public welfare functions of forest from integrated perspective and to induce voluntary efforts to conserve forest by reducing the gap between economic benefits from forest land development and those from forest land preservation should be established.
This study presents the way to adopt Transfer System of Forest Conservation Right(TSFCR) under which the cost that corresponds to benefits from development in the case of forest land conversion and public welfare functions of forest damaged by forest land conversion is imposed on those who want forest land conversion. And cost for improving public welfare functions of forest is paid to those who improve public functions of forest through forestation or forest tending.