North Korea has been mobilizing residents in a ��tree-planting campaign�� despite 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 Women��s 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 North��s Party-run daily Rodong Sinmun published an article on the 11th describing leader Kim Jong Eun��s tour around Pyongyang��s 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.