While North Korea continues to emphasize tree planting around Arbor Day, which is held on Mar. 2 in the country, supplying and caring for saplings remain big problems in the country, Daily NK has learned. There are also grievances inside North Korea about the entire populace being mobilized for the tree planting campaign.
“Kaechon has completed about 60% of its tree planting goals,” a source in South Pyongan Province told the Daily NK on Wednesday. This source related what happened at a food processing factory in the city to illustrate the current situation in North Korea.
According to the source, workers at the factory in Kaechon were having trouble doing their part of the project because they did not have enough saplings for their assigned area and also because many of the planted saplings died after failing to take root.
“That’s not a unique experience at this factory, but a common occurrence around the country,” the source said. All organizations and people take planting trees seriously because the campaign is emphasized by the party, but it is not easy to get results because of a fundamental limitation: there is not an adequate supply of saplings.
In addition, the negligent management of planted saplings is becoming an issue.
“North Koreans don’t perceive the necessity or importance of planting trees not only because the campaign has been going on for so long, but also because no one looks after the trees after they’re planted,” the source said.
Forest management is typically handled by forest rangers who belong to the people’s committee in each region. But since each ranger is responsible for an area of forest measuring dozens of jongbo (a Korean unit of measurement equivalent to 9,917 square meters), effective management is not feasible, the source explained.
The source added that ordinary North Koreans are less interested in protecting newly planted saplings than in pulling them up for use as firewood.
“Even when trees are planted, people who don’t have enough firewood often sneak out in the evening to uproot the young trees for firewood. That’s why there’s so much frustration about always having to plant trees when nobody is going to take care of them,” the source said.
This year, the North Korean government declared the first and second weeks of March as “tree-planting weeks” and ordered organizations to take part in the tree planting campaign. In addition, the authorities stressed the importance of tree planting and linked it to patriotism, giving the campaign political and ideological overtones.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made restoring the country’s depleted forests a signature policy since coming to power, and the entire populace gets called up for the campaign around this time of year. But people in the country are voicing their dissatisfaction with the government’s instructions to plant trees, the source said.
As North Korea’s food shortage gets worse because of international sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, families are most worried about keeping food on the table. That leads to grumbling when both wives and husbands are dragooned for tree planting projects by their respective organizations.
Another burden on North Koreans who are already struggling is the requirement to pay for sack lunches whenever they go out to plant trees, the source said.
“It costs at least KPW 10,000 to prepare a sack lunch, which is another big headache. KPW 10,000 is the cost of two kilograms of rice. Assuming each person eats 150 grams of rice per meal, that’s almost enough money to feed a family of three for two days. No wonder people aren’t overjoyed about tree planting,” he said.
