Wooded areas are being cleared to create arable land in Haeju, North Hwanghae Province, as seen in this recent photo taken from a satellite.
/ Courtesy of the Ministry of Environment |
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
A famine-prone, energy-starved North Korea has destroyed forests in its search for arable land to grow crops and vegetables.
South Korea has seen a greater increase in urbanization but has better environmental protection than its northern neighbor thanks to its reforestation efforts.
In a report by the Ministry of the Environment, ``land cover mapping,'' a method of showing geography by using satellite images and aerial photographs, showed that the North was chopping down forests to create farmland over a great deal of its territory, especially in areas near Haeju, South Hwanghae Province.
The wood-for-land method is now rarely used in the South because of fears of landslides.
Indiscriminate lumbering for cultivation is said to be a key factor behind flash floods in North Korea.
``The pictures show that the North has been suffering from severe famine and a lack of energy resources. It also means that they aren't interested in environmental preservation,'' ministry official Kim Shin-yup said.
In the South, highland fields are more popular in the mountainous areas of Gangwon, but a pertinent law applies strict regulations to deforestation for farming purposes.
The South also beats the North with regard to reforestation.
About 48 percent of the South's Mt. Halla on Jeju Island is densely wooded, compared with 30.3 percent on Mt. Baekdu. Both mountains were rendered nearly treeless because of lumber policies imposed during Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945).
Desertification in the North also appears to be unmistakable. According to Rep. Chung Doo-un of the ruling Grand National Party, about 1.6 million hectares of land, equivalent to 27 times the size of Seoul, have become desert-like.
An Asia Development Bank official Chung Tae-yong said in a seminar last year that desertification could influence the climate on the Korean peninsula and called for swifter reforestation campaigns.
Meanwhile, the maps showed that South Korea's urbanization is progressing rapidly. Only 1.1 percent of Gangnam, the upscale area of southern Seoul, is used for farming, compared with 84.8 percent that is urbanized. However, in Pyongyang, 26.4 percent still remain as agricultural areas.
Land cover mapping has been conducted every decade. ``This will be a good way to look into the state of the environment in North Korea, which not many of us has a chance to observe,'' the environment ministry said in a press release.
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