{"id":64810,"date":"2025-09-11T05:11:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T20:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=64810"},"modified":"2025-09-12T11:52:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T02:52:15","slug":"n-koreas-decade-long-reforestation-campaign-falls-short-of-ambitious-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/n-koreas-decade-long-reforestation-campaign-falls-short-of-ambitious-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"N. Korea’s decade-long reforestation campaign falls short of ambitious goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early August, NASA’s Earthdata Search web application released 2024 data on global forest and land use, analyzed by a Boston University research team using NASA’s MODIS satellite imagery. The Earthdata Search website has made this data publicly available<\/a> each year since 2001. I used this data to assess North Korea’s reforestation progress.<\/p>\n

North Korea’s reforestation campaign\u2014a national greenification initiative\u2014ran for a decade from 2015 to 2024. Kim Jong Un launched the campaign with a pledge to turn the entire country into “mountains of gold and treasure” in his 2015 New Year’s address. My analysis of North Korea’s reforestation progress using Earthdata finds that the country added 1,222,768 hectares of forest over those ten years\u2014just 72.7% of its original 1,682,000-hectare goal.<\/p>\n

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This 2024 map of North Korean forest and land use is based on publicly available data from NASA’s website. The distribution analysis, conducted using MODIS satellite data, shows forests covering 49.3% of North Korea’s territory and cultivated land accounting for 26.3%. (EARTHDATA SEARCH)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since Earthdata covers North Korean territory across three scenes, my 24-year analysis of forest and land use changes since 2001 required examining 72 scenes of data. My review found the following breakdown of North Korean land use in 2024: woodland (49.3%), cultivated land (26.3%), grassland (10.1%), shrubland (10.6%), and miscellaneous (3.7%).<\/p>\n

Forest trends reveal campaign impact<\/strong><\/h4>\n

My time-series analysis shows that North Korea’s forested area decreased by 0.8% annually from 2001 until 2015, when the trend reversed. Since then, forested area has grown by 1.1% each year. The turnaround coincides precisely with North Korea’s launch of its decade-long reforestation campaign aimed at creating “mountains of gold and treasure.”<\/p>\n

As of 2024, North Korea has an estimated 6,104,960 hectares of woodland\u2014an increase of 579,744 hectares from the 2015 low of 5,525,216 hectares. While the country remains 58,000 hectares behind its 2001 level of 6,162,960 hectares, the forest restoration efforts over the past decade represent encouraging progress.<\/p>\n