우리나라 산촌문제의 사적 고찰에 관한 연구

Abstract

The objectives of this research are to define the proper concept of the mountain village in Korea comparision to the cases of other countries and to examine the causes of mountain village problems in Korea before and after the year 1945 when the Japanese colonial period ended. This study employs a historical analysis to the problems related to mountain villages. The major findings are summarized as follows: 1. The mountain village is defined as a mountain area settled by people and surrounded by the forest environment. It is characterized by the fact that these areas has been socially and economically underdeveloped, due to the low returns on capital investment compare to other urban and rural areas. 2. Before the liberation of the Republic in 1945, the mountain villages were formed by the settlers who ran away from the home village due to the tenant system under the feudal landownership, and the high spot -farm rent, and by the fire-field farmers who escaped from home village to avoid draft system under the Japanese colonial regime. 3. The changes in the size of the private forest ownership show that the differentiation of Korean forest owners was not like the traditional European type. It is probably due to the fact that the objectives of forest ownership are not for the production of forest products, but for keeping graveyard and as a means of expanding their wealth. The small scale ownership leads to the basic problems of low investment in forest investments.