Declining Shine of Mt. Paekdu Reserve

It is the birthplace, North Koreans are told, of their “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. It is also said to be the cradle of the reputed founder of the first Korean kingdom, Tan¬gun, almost 4,500 years ago – the son of a god and a bear. Both of those stories may be debatable – Kim’s because Russian documents suggest he was born in Sibe¬ria during the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula and Tangun because it is considered a myth passed down the ages – but there is one indubitable truth about the Mt Paekdu region: it is a verifi¬able ecological treasure chest. Or, rather, it was, if recent reports are to be believed. For rampant logging may have wiped out as much as three quarters of the UN-pro¬tected forest, supposedly shepherded in a key North Korean biosphere that is home to the endangered Siberian tiger among other animal and plant species, research¬ers revealed in late May.

The Mount Paekdu reserve, which straddles the communist country’s bor¬der with China, has lost giant chunks of primary forest from its core area – a habitat which contains the world’s high¬est plant biodiversity in a cool, temperate climate. But as the research team – made up of members from the United States and China – elicited no response from the country’s Pyongyang-based govern¬ment in a bid to address concerns over the issue, some fear a return to the vi¬cious cycle of food shortages, deforesta¬tion, flooding and possible famine. The disclosure of the destruction comes at a time when exerted pressure and eco¬nomic sanctions are being placed on the North by its blood brother and political enemy South Korea – with many in the international community following suit. That follows a report blaming North Ko¬rea for the torpedo sinking of the South Korean navy vessel the Cheonan. Food aid is one area where South Korean Presi¬dent Lee Myung-bak this week ordered major curbs, with the only shipments to be allowed through being those destined for children.

“Particularly in the core area, there should be no human activity – no defor¬estation,” said Guofan Shao, a member of the research team who is based at Purdue University in the United States, on the research, published in Biologi¬cal Conservation. “But when you look at the data with Google Earth, you can see the forest is no longer intact.” The researchers used NASA satellite data and Google Earth to pinpoint the parts of the 326,000-acre UNESCO-designated site under heavy pressure. They also identi¬fied damage on the Chinese side of the reserve, though that was described as less serious and linked to pine nut har¬vesting rather than logging. Experts say it is unclear why the forest has been so dramatically felled but point to three main possibilities: clearance for farming, use of the timber for fuel, or the opening up of lucrative markets for certain types of wood. “There is a pretty cynical use of all resources by the ruling government,” said Tom Coyner, a Seoul-based political commentator on North Korea. “Wood is a fuel that is often used to power the economy as if it was in the worst period of World War I. It is used to fuel trucks when there is no access to petroleum products and so on.” In freezing winter temperatures, too, North Koreans are known to scour the land for material to keep warm and cook food – a crude look at Google Earth by night-time, of course, famously shows the northern half of the Korean peninsula practically shrouded in darkness, while the southern side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) dividing North and South is, by comparison, lit up like a Christmas tree. From the South’s side of the barbed-wire strewn DMZ, the hills skirting the North’s southern limit are virtually stripped bare, again a contrast to the forest-strewn half controlled by Seoul. Kim Jong-il’s regime is said to be incapable of feeding its own citizens and relies heavily on food aid from overseas. A desperate attempt to rein in private markets late last year with a redenomi¬nation of the national currency plunged the state into even more chaos, sparking hyperinflation, extra cash in the hands of the privilege few – and leaving many of the remainder at the very least even more malnourished, and, perhaps, starv¬ing. Andrei Lankov, a professor of North Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul, fears the damage may be beyond repute. “It is an open secret that in poor countries like North Korea, where offi¬cials are economically corrupt, that it is almost impossible to stop… the threat is even greater.”

He said local farmers may be clearing mountain slopes in desperate attempts to feed their families in the face of food shortages. “You see a lot of fields in the mountains (in North Korea),” explained Lankov, a veteran North Korea watcher who studied in Pyongyang in the 1980s. “It is there the farmers have their pri¬vate fields. They don’t really touch the government lands because they are not paid. Also, officials are easily bribed. The officials are bribed or sympathetic. They understand. The forests on Paekdu are important, but what about a farmer who has three children?” Lankov pointed out overseas markets for sought-after timber could also be a trigger, saying: “This can be done by the state, which really needs cash, or by local officials for their own profit.”

Coyner agrees. “Someone could have found a good market in Russia or China for certain kinds of logs.” Since the period around the North Korean famine in the 1990s – believed to have claimed the lives of millions – North Korea’s forest cover has been systematically devastated: This was the result of issues such as increas¬ing firewood production, conversion of forest to farmland and timber produc¬tion, a 2004 report noted. During serious flooding in 2006, North Korean defector Han Young-jin told of the devastating contribution deforestation made to flood damage. “For use as fuel, and in order to cultivate farmland, trees have been felled in large quantities, leaving the moun¬tains bare,” she wrote in the Daily NK, an online news service dedicated to cover¬ing North Korea.

Coyner sees no end in sight to the is¬sue – pointing out the impact of the other side of the meteorological spectrum that afflicted the North after the famine. “One of the constant problems is a large part of the droughts were caused by inappropri¬ate use of agricultural land.” The Mount Paekdu clearances, he said, “come as no surprise,” adding: “It is so sad to see as it is a major heritage site.”

One that the founder of the first Korean kingdom, Tangun, and despotic leader, Kim Jong-il – cherished as Mt Paekdu is in the folklore engendered by either – would see die as the bountiful and graced national treasure that it rep¬resents to all Koreans.