Analysis of Importance and Performance of Mountain Village Revitalization Policy for Balanced Regional Development: Focused on Forestry and Agriculture Policy in 8 Regional Governments

Abstract

Background and objective Due to the recent demographic crisis driving the extinction of certain local communities, it is necessary to promote core projects to revitalize mountain village and rural areas. Methods This study collected a total of 443 policy projects based on major policies and major business plans in the forestry and agricultural sectors of the eight regional governments in 2021. The collected 443 policy projects related to revitalizing the mountain villages were classified by 3 experts into 5 domains in the forestry sector, which further broke down into 27 types, 3 domains in the agricultural sector, and which further broke down into 23 types, for a total of 8 domains and 50 types, and an online survey of 42 policy stakeholders was then conducted. Analysis methods were t-test and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), and implications were derived through comparison between forestry and agricultural sectors. Results The analysis produced several findings. first, it was positive that many projects in the sustainability field appeared in both forestry and agricultural sectors, but it was found that the policy projects needed to be reviewed due to the lack of types corresponding to projects in the intensive promotion area. Intensive core efforts included “discovering forest cultural assets” and “creating forests to improve the environment.” Second, it is necessary to pay attention to the forestry policy sector, as the forestry policy sector were generally lower in importance and performance than the agricultural policy sector. Third, the domains with high importance and performance to mountain village revitalization were “forest welfare services”, “improving settlement environment”, and “increasing incomes” while the domains with low importance and performance were mountain villages and forest culture areas. Conclusion In summary, to revitalize mountain villages in response to the issue of the pending extinction of local communities, forest welfare service projects should continuously be promoted and strategic responses are required for “discovering forest cultural assets” and “creating forests for environmental improvement,” which are suggested as key strategic project types.