South Hamgyong Province’s authorities wrapped up their tree planting activities at the end of March and have conducted evaluations of organizations involved in the reforestation program.
“The provincial authorities finished their spring tree planting activities as of Mar. 31,” a source in South Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Apr. 7. “They conducted evaluations of organizations that did well in mobilizing labor [for the tree-planting].”
In accordance with orders from the central government, South Hamgyong Province’s party committee sent out officials from the start of the reforestation program in order to produce daily reports on how it was going, the source said.
According to the source, the provincial party committee had previously announced that, “This spring’s tree-planting should focus on achieving specific results rather than just being a hollow exercise that gets reported up the line like in past years.” The party committee further called for all the province’s citizens to work diligently and sincerely to fill the nation’s mountains with trees.
The committee also declared that, starting this year, it would conduct annual performance evaluations of tree planting efforts. Moreover, it announced that provincial officials would evaluate the heads of each tree-planting work unit, claiming that the “survival rate” of the trees – into autumn of this year, next spring, and a few years from now – would determine whether the saplings have been planted properly.
On the back of these marching orders, workers from government agencies and enterprises, the country’s women’s league, and inminban (people’s units) were mobilized en masse to take part in the province’s spring tree planting efforts. After the planting of saplings ended in late March, the provincial party committee then conducted overall evaluations of the work that had been done.
The source reported that one branch of the country’s women’s union in Hamhung received a particularly high score for their display of creativity and initiative during the tree planting efforts.
“The women’s league branch in Hamhung was mobilized to plant trees in a far off place,” the source said. “The group received a high score for raising their work efficiency by pooling [the resources of] well-off people and poor people to ensure everyone was fed.”
Meanwhile, the provincial party committee plans to combine the positive and negative feedback from the spring tree planting efforts to hold another evaluation at the committee’s quarterly review session.
While the nationwide spring tree-planting period largely came to a close in late March, some organizations in colder areas of the country were still planting trees as late as Apr. 5, the source said.
Translated by Vilde Olaussen
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