[imText1]As spring recently arrived, smoke curls up from the mountains in North Korea again. This is due to the fires set by the farmers who slash-and-burn in order to prepare the land for farming. As the snow melts and the land dries out in March and April, people set these fires and they soon become as volatile as explosives.
Presently, the South Korean military is alarmed due to the forest fires, which have started around the Tongil Tower, or the observation platform of Reunion Mountain, and is located in the northwestern area of North Korea. It will soon spread to the DMZ, or the demilitarized zone. Consequently, the fires could easily extend into South Korea by crossing over the DMZ.
The Main Reason of North Korean Forest Fire is Farm Burning
Forest fires break out due to natural accidents and peoples’ own carelessness. There have been no recorded cases when forest fires were caused by molten lava from volcanoes and it is even rarer for lightning to start a forest fire. The most common cause of forest fires in North Korea is carelessness. Some fires are caused by the steam locomotive or charcoal vehicles that dump still-burning ashes in the forest and some by careless smokers who drop cigarettes that are still lit.
In order to prevent such forest fires, forest patrols were built at the entrance of each mountain in North Korea. Furthermore, they made a law that people who want to enter the mountain area must have a permit from the Mountain Management Department.
However, strange fires often occurred starting the mid-1990s. People who suffered greatly through the national famine, started to exploit the national forests, and felt that they would starve to death if they only relied upon the government for sustenance. There was no way to stop such desperate acts for survival. If they could have afforded it, it may be possible to fine them for their misdeeds. However, when officials went to the houses of the violators of the law, the houses were often full of penniless and unemployed people who had nothing to lose.
Even the Government of North Korea Permitted the Slash-and-Burn Farming Method
Since the “march of tribulation” arrived, farms were unproductive as people were not eager to farm at the cooperative farms. The government would take the food produced from the cooperative farms from the people, so people started to secure the land for their own benefit. Around evening time, some people would walk up to the mountains with matches. They would set the mountain on fire and pretend they know nothing of it.
For fortunate cases, people come running to put out the fire or the fire is stopped by rain. Usually, these mountain fires last over three days.
The mountains of North Korea are bare mainly because of arson. People would walk up the bare mountains as if in a competition, remove gigantic trees, and make their individual farms there. From that moment, the farms became their own land.
The area where the first widespread deaths by starvation occurred was Jagang-do in the mid-1990s. A place with many mountains and fewer farmlands, many munitions factories were built there. It was the people, the factory workers in the munitions plants, of Jagang-do who suffered from the start of the food shortage when the government stopped the food distribution.
As more people starved to death, the Provincial Party Secretary General, Yeon Hyung Mook, ordered the chopping down of the ‘useless trees’ in order to plant food to eat for three years. Eventually, he intended to plant young trees in the place of the old trees were and to farm the land for three years while the new trees grew. Since then, people climbed up to the mountain in groups and started to cultivate the mountain farmlands rather competitively. The people who farmed on the mountain farms did not starve to death the following year. At that time, if the nation had distributed the land to those people who were so capable of farming it, it may have prevented the mass starvation and saved the mountains.
Generous to Incendiaries Since There is Nothing to Eat
Once the people who set fire to the mountains were secretly arrested. The forest patrols delivered them to the National Security Department. However, those people who burnt hundreds of hectares of forests were detained for about a week and then released. Such generosity was due to the severe food shortage. Of course, their family members had to bribe officials with money, liquor and cigarettes, etc. in order to procure an early release.
Such generous treatment of the incendiaries was possible due to the lack of a sense of ownership. The forests are national assets and thus, they belong to no one person. The worse problem of all is the bare mountains of North Korea. The people are insensitive to the “importance of public assets.” The next generation of the North Korean people will inherit the desolate lands where trees will not grow and thus, the North Korean regime is committing a grave sin to the generations to come.
