Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy proposes amendment to Natural Environment Conservation Act enforcement decree

"Expansion expected to boost natural environment conservation projects toward '30x30' goal"

[123RF]
[123RF]

Authorized agents acting on behalf of developers will be allowed to participate in the ecosystem conservation levy refund program, a change expected to ease the environmental compliance burden on businesses while strengthening conservation outcomes.

Under a proposed amendment to the enforcement decree of the Natural Environment Conservation Act, announced Wednesday by the Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy, eligibility to carry out ecosystem conservation levy refund projects will be expanded. It will cover not only the original levy payers — typically developers — but also designated agents who have obtained consent from those payers.

The ecosystem conservation levy refund program allows developers to recoup up to 50 percent of the ecosystem conservation levies they have paid, on the condition that they directly carry out natural environment conservation projects such as restoring damaged ecosystems, creating small-scale ecological habitats and installing wildlife corridors.

The amendment extends participation in the program beyond levy-paying developers to include authorized agents with the payers' consent. The change is intended to reduce the burden on developers of running conservation projects themselves while improving the overall effectiveness of such projects through the involvement of specialized agents.

The ministry said the measure aims to fulfill the country's international commitments — including the goal of restoring more than 30 percent of degraded ecosystems — by promoting natural environment conservation projects such as ecological restoration initiatives.

The ministry had previously announced its alignment with the international biodiversity target of protecting and managing 30 percent of the country's land and ocean as protected areas by 2030, while restoring 30 percent of degraded ecological zones.

As a national strategy to implement the global pledge adopted at the 2022 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the government launched the "30x30 Alliance" — a public-private consultative body bringing together the government, international organizations, academia and companies including Samsung Electronics and Posco DX — to pursue initiatives such as restoring the ecosystem of the Demilitarized Zone, rehabilitating key riparian habitats and running tree-planting campaigns.


thlee@heraldcorp.com