economy

Under the wise leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea, modern tree nurseries rose up in different parts of the DPRK, the nationwide production of tree saplings more than doubled and more than a million hectares of new forests came into being, including hundreds of thousands of hectares of wild fruit tree forests, in the past 11 years after the beginning of the forest restoration campaign in the country.

In addition, the title of Forest of Socialist Patriotism was conferred on more than 10 000 units and progress was made in the afforestation and landscaping of the whole country, including the marked increase in the utility rate of forest land through the introduction of an agroforestry management method and valuable forest sciences and technologies.

It is the firm decision and will of the WPK to turn all mountains across the country into “treasure and gold mountains” with thick forests in the near future.

During his inspection of the Central Tree Nursery under the Ministry of Land and Environment Protection in November 2014, General Secretary Kim Jong Un said that there was no room to step back with bare mountains left as they were, calling on the whole Party, the entire army and all the people to turn out in the forest restoration campaign, regarding forest restoration as a war with nature, just as the whole country had turned out for reconstruction on the debris after the war.

In February 2015, he published his historic work “Let the Entire Party, the Whole Army and All the People Conduct a Vigorous Forest Restoration Campaign to Cover the Mountains of the Country with Green Woods” to illuminate tasks and ways for the restoration of forests of the country.

Under the sagacious leadership of the General Secretary who unfolded a grand plan for forest restoration and led the campaign, great innovations were brought about in the work for afforestation and modern tree nurseries with the production of saplings put on a scientific, industrial and intensive basis at a high level sprang up in different parts of the country.

Provincial tree nurseries capable of producing over 20 million saplings a year were newly built in Kangwon and North Hamgyong provinces and labour- and land-saving tree nurseries built as strong arsenals for afforestation in other provinces like North and South Phyongan and North Hwanghae provinces. The provincial tree nurseries produce more than 200 million tree saplings a year.

Moreover, the material and technical foundations of city and county tree nurseries were continuously consolidated to increase the production of tree saplings every year.

A newly built forestry equipment and materials factory produces and fully supplies forestry equipment and materials, including plastic panels, tree sapling vessels and awnings in different sizes, to tree nurseries across the country.

An intensive drive was launched to fully meet the scientific and technical requirements in planting trees and create forests for practical use on a nationwide scale.

The campaign for forest restoration was vigorously conducted with emphasis put not on how many trees are planted but on how many trees are alive. Earnings of forests per unit area were maximized by planting mixed forests with major species of trees and those of wild fruit trees suited to the climatic and soil conditions of relevant regions and the management purpose.

The Academy of Forest Science under the Ministry of Land and Environment Protection finished the grafting of good species in about 2 000 hectares of Evodia Daniellii Benn forests tended by ten city and county Evodia Daniellii Benn forestry stations chosen as model units and launched the work for producing and widely spreading chestnut tree saplings of good species with good taste and high productivity.

The academy researched for and completed in succession valuable forest sciences and technologies like the technology for planting pine nut tree forest in a Korean way and the method of producing seabuckthorn tree saplings of good species and helped relevant regions introduce them.

Planting forests of economic value was vigorously promoted with clear purposes in different parts of the country, thus creating hundreds of thousands of hectares of wild fruit tree forests across the country until last year.

The national information service system for forest fire observation has taken great effect, the work for the prevention of damage from blights and harmful insects to forests has been strongly pushed as an all-people undertaking and other fundamental improvements have been made in forest protection.