On 22 May 2025, the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO) attended a working-level coordination meeting at Kangwon National University with key domestic partners including the Korea Forest Service (KFS), Kangwon National University (KNU). National Institute of Forest Science (NIFoS), Korea Forest Aviation Headquarters, and the Korea Forest Fire Management Association. The meeting focused on developing the implementation framework for the full-scale rollout of the Forest Fire Management in Asia (FFMA) Initiative.
Launched as a trilateral initiative with France and the Republic of Korea, FFMA is structured around three core components, capacity-building training, joint academic degrees, and researcher exchange. Building on a series of pilot activities conducted in 2024 including regional forest fire suppression trainings, a short-term expert course in France, and the initiation of a specialized 1-year Master’s program, AFoCO now seeks to scale the initiative to its Member Countries through a comprehensive and long-term strategy.
At the meeting, Kangwon National University emphasized the importance of higher education in training future forest fire experts and proposed the development of a standardized training manual that integrates theory, field techniques, and equipment operation. The Korea Forest Aviation Headquarters, reflecting on their participation in AFoCO’s regional training in Thailand, underscored the logistical challenges of transporting firefighting equipment overseas and recommended the strategic prepositioning of equipment in three regional hub countries.
Drawing on its various domestic training experience conducting around 1,300 sessions annually for 50,000 participants, the Korea Forest Fire Management Association introduced plans to mobilize a pool of retired fire management experts and utilize their in-house training materials for FFMA Initiative. On the research front, NIFoS expressed its intent to expand programs focused on fire modeling, risk forecasting, post-fire restoration, and nursery development. A collaborative framework for Master’s and PhD-level researcher exchange with Kangwon National University was also proposed.
Participants shared a common vision for FFMA to evolve into an integrated model that spans prevention, suppression, and post-fire recovery moving beyondtraining toward a holistic capacity-building initiative.
AFoCO also identified several concrete follow-up actions: exploring university partnerships for the joint degree program; organizing a domestic university roundtable; conducting a preliminary review of instructors from the Korea Forest Fire Management Association; initiating task forces for researcher exchange; and identifying research themes linked to AFoCO’s Living Lab Initiative. A Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting with France and Korea is scheduled for September 2025 to finalize budgets, curricula, equipment deployment strategies, and administrative procedures for the joint degree program. Prior to that, a technical-level consultation with the French counterparts will take place in June.
Through this meeting, AFoCO has reinforced the operational momentum behind the FFMA Initiative and is poised to build a Korea-tailored, regionally responsive model for forest fire management across Asia, one grounded in based innovation, and international collaboration.
Submitted by Kiwon Kim, Program Officer, Capacity-Building and Evaluation Team