일제 하 임야조사사업의 시행목적과 성격

Abstract

This article investigated main purposes of the Project of Forest Land Survey(Imya Chosa Saŏp) performed by the Japanese Government-General in Chosŏn from the year of 1917 to 1924. Although it has been regarded that this project played the important role in the Japanese authority"s plunder of some of land owned by Koreans, in fact the purpose of this project was not to create public forest section but to officially approve of existing land ownership.

According to some studies published by Japanese scholars, the Government- General intended to modernize Korean rural area. The Government-General also required the improvement of watercourses and the conservancy of forest zones in order to carry out this modernization. Therefore forestation had been adopted as the primary economic policy by the Japanese colonial authority. In other words, this project was that the Japanese authority allowed existing Korean land-owners legal ownership for the purpose of promoting Koreans" voluntary forestation in private land.

But this project was actually functioned as an way for expanding tax sources of the colonial government. Finally the Japanese Government- General forced land-owners to organize cooperative associations, and levied heavy taxes to these associations after carrying out this project.