백두대간 이용과 보전에 관한 갈등사례 연구 - 갈등조정과정을 중심으로 -

Abstract

The recent fads of mountain climbing including the walking along Baekdudaegan have caused serious environmental problems including the degradations of the ridges and the disturbance of fauna and flora habitats. And the conflicts among the stakeholders have increased from the designations of non-open trails inside the National parks. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the consensus- building processes to resolve the disputes among mountaineering groups, environmental groups, local residents, Korea National Park Service, Korea Forest Service, and the Ministry of Environment due to the differences of their perspectives and philosophy on use and conservation of the non-open trails within the protection areas of Baekdudaegan inside the National Parks. This case study has focused, first, on the "Mediation Committee on Use and Conservation of Baekdudaegan inside the National Parks" which was worked from August to November, 2011 and then, on the "Task Force for the Preliminary Projects for Conservation and Sustainable Use of Baekdudaegan" which was operated from March to November, 2012. This paper introduces the background of the disputes around use and conservation of Baekdudaegan and analyzes the issues and the stakeholders with the conflict assessment. Then, this paper describes the organization and proceedings of the mediation process for enhancing mutual understanding and resolving the dispute and also shows the process to reach the agreement from the mediation. Then, this paper provides the works of the task force of the preliminary projects to enforce the agreement which was ended up to the failure. The consensus-building processes were not successful to resolve the conflicts between use and conservation of Baekdudaegan for two years, even though some stakehoders tried to reach agreement. But the enviornmental groups involved could not overcome their mistrust to governmental parties which were perceived to be skewed to the use of forests. This paper shows that consensus-building process could not guarantee to reach an agreement. This case may require more sophisticated process design and strategical factors that may increase the possibility to reach an agreement.