Tree-Planting Mobilization Despite Winter Cold

North Korea has been mobilizing residents
in a
tree-planting campaigndespite
the onset of the winter season. Closely following a recent tree nursery onsite visit by Kim Jong Eun, who expressed concerns of the nation’s deforestation, the 
campaign is thought to be the result of Party cadres vying to prove their loyalty to the leader. 

There are rallies at the provincial, city,
and county level to attain Kim Jong Eun
s goal of
afforestation across the entire country,
a source in
North Hamkyung Province told the Daily NK on Thursday.
All residents, including elementary school students, have been
mobilized for this abrupt tree-planting campaign across the country.”

Students have been planting various types
of trees, such as pines, and are creating
youth forests; state factories and enterprises and the Chosun Democratic Womens Union have been planting socialist
patriotism forests
during all-day excursions to plant
trees along mountains, river banks, and railways,
 he elaborated.

Tree planting projects are usually conducted in the spring and fall in the North–such operations in the winter are considered highly unusual. 

According to the source, this has not slowed down the mass effort. “Despite
the cold weather and snowfall, areas surrounding railroads and mountains are
packed with people digging the ground with shovels and pickaxes,” he asserted.

State factories, schools, and neighborhoods
across the country are being tasked with tree-planting projects in designated areas. According the the source, some workers have secretly dug up previously planted
trees to fulfill their quota, creating friction among competing groups.

Because the massive campaign falls after
the regular tree planting season, tree nurseries in the provinces are
significantly low on supply,
he said. As a result, some plantations and Forest Management Centers have
been selling young trees for 200-500 KPW [0.02-0.06 USD].
  

Most mountains are bare and a lot of the
ground has been dug up to use as individual small plots, so there
s not much of a problem to plant trees there. But residents in farming
areas worry that the trees will be planted in their plots, which would in
effect deprive them of their farming grounds,
the
source concluded.

Meanwhile, the Norths Party-run daily Rodong Sinmun published an article on the 11th
describing leader Kim Jong Eun
s tour around Pyongyangs Central Tree Nursery. During his visit, Kim said, [T]he forest resources of the country shrank in bulk during the
Arduous March, the forced march and the state of forest denudation is very
serious,
and called on residents, the Party, and the
army to mobilize and fight as part of this
war with
nature,” according to the paper.