North Korea pushes forest restoration

This photo, provided by Green Korea in May shows a bare mountain near North Korea's border city of Gaesong. Courtesy of Green Korea (Korea Times file)

By Jung Da-min

North Korea is going all out to restore its forests. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) publication Rodong Sinmun Sunday pointed out some "under-performing" areas, calling for officials to achieve substantial results.

In an editorial titled "It is necessary to be a thorough enforcer of the party policy to innovate forest restoration projects," the newspaper took Mundok County in South Pyongan Province as an exemplary region that is successfully executing the party's reforestation plan. Other regions were accused of performing poorly.

Workers in Koksan County in North Hwanghae Province, Ryonggang County and Nyongwon County in South Pyongyang Province and Sinwon County in South Hwanghae Province have been publicly reprimanded for being "irresponsible" in building proper infrastructure and planting and looking after trees.

"The cause of the deficiencies in the units pointed out above is because the military leaders, who have to lead the regions' overall forest restoration project at the front line with a sense of responsibility, do not have the right attitude and viewpoint for the party's policy implementation," the newspaper said, accusing the military workers of "tricky" performances that bore no fruit.

Leader Kim Jong-un has pushed forest restoration since he took power, but experts say it will be difficult to get results without first solving the country's food and energy problems.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un inspects a nursery in Kangwon Province in this July file photo. Rodong Sinmun-Yonhap.

According to (the South's) National Institute of Forest Science's satellite imagery analysis, North Korea's forest area decreased to 8.99 million hectares in 2008 from 9.16 million hectares in 1999.

Joint forest restoration projects between the two Koreas have been discussed since the April 27 Panmunjeom joint statement.

During the recent September Pyongyang summit, South Korean business leaders ― including Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Group CEO Koo Kwang-mo and Hyundai Motor Group Vice President of Kim Yong-hwan ― visited the Korean People's Army's 122 tree nursery plantation in Songrim, North Hwanghae Province.

Meanwhile, Rodong also emphasized a scientific approach to restoring forests, in another editorial on Saturday.

In the editorial titled "Let's embrace the hearts of enthusiastic patriots and strengthen the forest restoration battle," it said the result of forest restoration project was not about how many trees had been planted but about how many trees had been properly raised to survive.

Rodong also urged workers to adopt agro forestry while emphasizing that forests should be classified according to use such as economic forest, protected forest, timber forest and ornamental forest.