Before their military occupation, Korea's mountains accounting for 80 percent of its territory were covered with dense forests.

The Japanese imperialists, who were pressed by the lack of resources, conducted a "forest survey" of Korea from the beginning of 1910 and, on this basis, proclaimed the "Ordinance on Forest", a colonial evil law, in June 1911.

As a result, they seized 16 millions of hectares of forests under the plea of "nationalized forest" and "forest reserve" and handed over them to big businessmen, companies, individual Japs and pro-Japanese traitors.

In the 1930s, they more viciously committed the deforestation and plundering to make preparations for a war of aggression on the continent. They expanded the structure for forest plunder and tightened the control over the forest use by Koreans and cut down trees at random in different parts of Korea including the surroundings of scenic spots, historical remains and temples under the plea of urgent supply of "the needs in wartime".

During their colonial rule over Korea (1905-1945), the Japanese imperialists plundered it of hundred millions of cubic meters of timbers.

After all, mountains of Korea were stripped bare and such plunder resulted in calamity to the Korean people. In the 1920s alone, Korea witnessed the River Raktong flooding of 1920, the Taedong River flooding of 1923 and the 1925 floods of the Han, Rimjin, Kumgang and other rivers. The scope of flood damage in the 1920s was three times that in the 1910s.