• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2023

In North Korea, the production of courage tombs continues, and it is known that the activity rate is higher than that of old tombs. However, pot seedling are planted using hoes and shovels used for planting old tombs with exposed roots and low activity rates. This is believed to result in excessive force when stepping on the container grave with a hoe in the planting process, resulting in the collapse of the container grave or the waste of labor due to the creation of unnecessary planting holes. Therefore, when planting courage graves at North Korean afforestation sites, it is necessary to improve the work of making planting holes using general hoes in a way that improves labor productivity in a more efficient manner. As part of inter-Korean technical cooperation to improve the North Korean afforestation method, this study was conducted with the aim of developing efficient container seedlings and using them for North Korean forest restoration projects. It is believed that developing planting equipment exclusively for container graves for forest restoration in North Korea in South Korea and providing equipment and production technology to North Korea can contribute to the development of forest restoration technology in North Korea. If the Yonggeomyo Development Planting Equipment is provided to North Korea, it will be a realistic inter-Korean forest cooperation project to avoid international sanctions by recognizing the excellence of the development products by directly using its own materials through technical cooperation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.111 no.4
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• pp.667-675
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• 2022

Agroforestry is an ecological and economic land-use system that enables sustainable agriculture by combining forestry, agriculture, and livestock industries. North Korea chose agroforestry as a strategy for the restoration of sloping land and deforested land. Agroforestry was proposed for the inter-Korean forest cooperation subcommittee meeting and is currently highlighting carbon removal and promoting the '2050 Carbon Neutral Strategy' and 'Korea Peninsula Green Détente.' The study area, Suan-gun, Hwanghaebuk-do, is a constant deforestation monitoring area and a pilot site for management by the International Center for Research in Agroforestry. The requirements for agroforestry were analyzed through literature analysis. The agroforestry site-suitability map was visualized by applying GIS overlap analysis. Approximately 8,839 ha of sloping area was selected as suitable for agroforestry management, which is about 15% of Suan. We compared the map with Google Earth images and visually detected the land use status, such as agroforestry in Suan, to verify the results. As a future study, we will consider both natural-environment and socioeconomic factors and evaluate the relative importance of the factors to produce a high-accuracy agroforestry sitesuitability map at the national scale with the goal of producing basic data for the inter-Korea forest cooperation policy for long-term goals.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.258-262
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• 2019

This study was aimed to clarify the morphological and ecological characteristics of Dolichomitus cephalotes and Dolichomitus curticornis in order to provide basic data to be used for biological control against Monochamus saltuarius. D. cephalotes and D. curticornis are univioltine in the central region of Korea and overwinters as larval stage inside the cocoon. Both species are ectoparasitoid, and a solitary parasitoid. D. cephalotes adults are emerged from the beginning of April to the middle of May, while D. curticornis adults are emerged from late April to mid-May.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.110 no.3
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• pp.355-368
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• 2021

This study aims to identify appropriate tree species and crops for agroforestry target sites in North Korea based on ecological geography and site properties. To this end, an ecological geographic map (13 regions and 4 zones) of North Korea was made using satellite images and North Korean academic journal articles. The target agroforestry sites were selected and mapped according to 18 site conditions depending on 3 site characteristics, and the sites were divided into short-term and long-term target sites depending on the agroforestry management period. Finally, optimal combinations of 30 tree species and 19 crops were selected by overlapping the ecological geographic map and agroforestry target site map. For regions within the same zone, tree species and crops were almost similar; however, compared to regions in other zones, they differed. This is likely because the geographical climatic characteristics reflected in the ecological geographic map vary greatly from zone to zone. These results will be used to propose a combination of suitable tree species and crops that takes into account both management purposes and management types for inter-Korean forest cooperation in the agroforestry sector.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.109 no.1
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• pp.81-98
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• 2020

In this study, forest-related research papers published in North Korean journals were analyzed to understand the research trends in North Korean forest science. The Korea Science and Technology Information Institute (KISTI) North Korea Science and Technology Network (NKtech) is constructing a database related to science and technology in North Korea. From this, a total of 1,389 articles published from 1962 to 2016 were collected with forest science key words based on the South Korean National Science and Technology Standard Classification System. The topics were divided into four categories: afforestation, forest protection, forest use, and forest management. In the field of afforestation, research activities on nursery and agroforestry were active, and the survival rate was emphasized. In the forest protection field, there was a significant research effort into forest pests, and efforts were being made to reduce soil erosion through agroforestry. In the field of forest use, research activities on pulp/paper and mushrooms were active. In the forest management field, activities related to "ecological information" were conspicuous, and efforts were being made to reduce carbon. These results suggest that the perspective of North Korean forest research has changed from nature reorganization to nature protection. Thus, a comparative study on forest science and technology in each sub-sector of the forest research field, along with analysis of the relationship between policy direction and research direction of North Korea over time, would be worthwhile future investigations. To overcome the problem of technical terminology, a compilation/dictionary of inter-Korean forestry terminology would be useful for effective communication between the two Koreas.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.112 no.4
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• pp.459-471
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• 2023

This study identified the characteristics of changes in forest areas of North Korea's major regions (Gaesong, Goseong, Pyongyang, and Hyesan·Samsu) using data on degraded lands collected via monitoring by the National Institute of Forest Science. The data, spanning 1999 to 2018, were cross-analyzed to determine trends in land cover change, and hotspot analysis was conducted to confirm evident changes in the forest areas. The results showed that the areas of interest substantially transitioned to other land use types from 1999 to 2008. Contrastingly, the range of changes decreased from 2008 to 2018, with some areas regenerating into forests. Nevertheless, the hotspot analysis indicated that hotspots occurred more intensively in the outskirts of cities and forest edges from 2008 to 2018 than from 1999 to 2008. The analysis also showed that the aforementioned changes were caused by various aspects, depending on regional characteristics and social factors. This study can be used as a basic reference for decision-making on the selection of basic forest restoration targets and restoration methods in inter-Korean forest cooperation initiatives.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.411-419
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• 2022

DPR Korea has been creating cropland across the country due to its chronic food shortage. Cropland was about 17.4% at the end of the 1980s, but it increased steadily to 19.6% at the end of the 1990s, 24.8% at the end of the first decade of 2000s, and 25.4% at the end of the 2010s. On the other hand, the forest land declined from about 74.8% in the late 1980s to 69.5% in the late 2010s. Urbanization is also progressing, increasing from about 1.15% at the end of the 1980s to 1.68% at the end of the 2010s. Most of the deforestation that occurred in DPR Korea was caused by conversion to cropland. These characteristics of land cover changes in DPR Korea provide useful information and implications for international and inter-Korean cooperation for DPR Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.113-126
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• 2021

This study was conducted to analyze the forest status and deforestation area changes of the DMZ region in North Korea based on satellite images. Using growing and non-growing season's RapidEye satellite images, land cover of the North Korean DMZ was classified into stocking land(conifer, deciduous, mixed), deforested land(unstocked mountain, cultivated mountain, bare mountain), and non-forest areas. Deforestation rates in the Yeonan-baecheon, Beopdong-Pyeonggang, Heoyang-Geumgang and Tongcheon-Goseong district were calculated as 14.24%, 16.75%, 5.98%, and 16.63% respectively. Forest fire and land use change of forest were considered as the main causes of deforestation of DMZ. Changes in deforestation area were analyzed through Google Earth images. As a results, it was shown that the area of deforestation was on a decreasing trend. This study can be used as basic data for establishing inter-Korean border region's forest cooperation strategies by providing forest spatial information on the North Korea's DMZ.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.110 no.3
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• pp.419-430
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• 2021

This study investigated spatiotemporal trends of sediment-related disasters in North Korea from 1960 to 2019 and post-disaster recovery cases based on a literature review and satellite images. Results showed that occurrence status of sediment-related disasters was initially externally reported in 1995 (during the Kim Jongil era); their main triggering factor was heavy summer rainfall. Furthermore, forest degradation rate was positively correlated with population density (R² = 0.4347, p = 0.02) and occurrence number of sediment-related disasters was relatively high on the west coast region, where both variables showed high values. This indicates that human activity was a major cause of forest degradation and thus, significantly affected sediment-related disasters in mountain regions. Finally, sediment- related disasters due to shallow landslides, debris flow, and slow-moving landslides were observed in undisturbed forest regions and human-impacted forest regions, including terraced fields, opencast mines, forest roads, and post-wildfire areas, via satellite image analysis. These disaster-hit areas remained mostly abandoned without any recovery works, whereas hillside erosion control work (e.g., treeplanting with terracing) or torrent erosion control work (e.g., check dam, debris flow guide bank) were implemented in certain areas. These findings can provide reference information to expand inter-Korean exchange and cooperation in forest rehabilitation and erosion control works of North Korea.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.224-238
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• 2022

North Korea has actively participated in the international community related to environmental agreements. It has proposed various environmental policies internally since the Kim Jong-un regime. In particular, it emphasizes activities related to climate change response, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the conservation of ecosystems including forests and wetlands. In this study, a new security cooperation plan was proposed with an understanding of the climate crisis and environmental regime as a starting point. To this end, trends and recent activities for climate-environment cooperation in the international community and on the Korean Peninsula were analyzed. In addition, North Korea's conditions for cooperation on the Korean Peninsula, technology demand, and the projected future environment of the Korean Peninsula were dealt with. Ultimately, through advice of experts, we were able to discover cooperation agendas by sector and propose short-term and long-term environmental cooperation strategies for the Korean Peninsula based on them. In this study, conditions and directions for cooperation in fields of climate technology, biological resources, air/weather, water environment, biodiversity, renewable energy, bioenergy, and so on were considered comprehensively. Among 21 cooperation agendas discovered in this study, energy showed the largest number of areas. Renewable energy, forest resources, and environmental and meteorological information stood out as agendas that could be cooperated in the short term. As representative initiatives, joint promotion of 'renewable energy' that could contribute to North Korea's energy demand and carbon neutrality and 'forest cooperation' that could be recognized as a source of disaster reduction and greenhouse gas sinks were suggested.