Lessons from DPR of Korea

DPRK, with about 80% of mountainous topography and only 10% of grain production area among land territory, strains every effort on the improvement of Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use under recent years’ repeated natural disaster and economic difficulties.

DPR of Korea, the party member of “Convention on Biodiversity” has recognized that successful improvement of Biodiversity conservation is connected with not only present generation but also global benefit, and has conducted necessary works for the implementation of convention and could achieve some success in this process.

For restoration of destructed forest by natural disaster and energy shortage, DPRK enabled to plant some 833,000,000 trees by increasing capacity of nursery extensively, even in the last year.

This work was done in close relation with ecosystem recovery and basin management improvement which were emphasized in NBSAP developed in 1998.

“As we are communists waging struggle for young generation and ourselves, beautiful land and rich resources should be handed to posterity.”

Upholding the teachings of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il that land management and environment protection should be conducted in high level, whole Korean people rise as one in land construction and environment protection of our county.

For these purpose, expecting that the basic and applied research for Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use should be strengthened and training experts and educating masses of this sector should be intensified, the plans are being developed and implemented.

DPRK became party member of this convention by ratifying “Convention on Biodiversity” in Oct. 1994. The government agencies that are in charge of “Convention on Biodiversity” in DPRK include the Ministry of Land and Environment Protection and the Academy of Sciences. The Academy of sciences carries out both functions of leading scientific research work and giving unified guidance to national scientific and technical administrative work, as ministry of science and technology in the country. Therefore, the Academy of Science is in charge of scientific and technical phase related with performance of “Convention on Biodiversity”.

The government of DPRK took measure that developing NBSAP for performance of CBD should be subject to the Academy of Science and it should be conducted by those including the ministry of land and environment protection.

According to this measure, the Academy of Sciences has proceeded preparation for drawing up document throughout two years by including several agencies which are related with Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use.

GEF has informed that developing DPRK’s NBSAP and National Report of Action Plan should be cooperated with capacity building project for CBD implementation.

According to GEF project, two negotiators from GEF visited DPRK in 1998, and actively helped making BSAP by participating in two workshops and several discussions with local agencies.

Two workshops for making BSAP, were successively conducted with the participation of central agency, local organs and all NGOs like Academy of Science, Ministry of Land and Environment protection, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Forestry, Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Fishery, Hydro Meteorological Bureau and Natural Conservation Union that are directly related with Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use.

As a result, NBSAP in DPRK could be developed within a comparatively short period.

The major reason that NBSAP could be developed in a short period, is that quite a few preparatory work for Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use has already been conducted in the Academy of Sciences according to government measure and positive supports by GEF.

General Land Construction Program is unified and comprehensive long-term plan of land construction is to rationally explore and use land in conformity with national economic development and public work, and to manage the nation’s economic life in a prospective and planned way.

The General Land Construction Program includes protection and forestation of forest resource, protection and proliferation of useful animals and plants, land resource conservation and land adjustment, adjustment of rivers and lakes, reservoirs and comprehensive utilization of buildings, blocking fold damage, situation and scale of districts for underground resources development, industrial and agricultural enterprises, establishment of protect area and its management, conservation and development of coast and territorial waters, protection and proliferation of marine resources, and prevention of environment pollution, etc.

General Land Construction Program is developed by reflecting the major requirement of environment protection “State establish environment protection measure before production and preserve nature environment and disturb environment pollution and provide people with cultural and sanitary environment and working condition” which was stipulated in article 57 of socialist constitution.

Particularly, General Land Construction Program of DPRK including major objectives of BSAP in several sectors of general land construction program as developing NBSAP was conducted slightly earlier.

At present, DPRK is in the preparation of making General Land Construction Program by provinces according to newly developed General Land Construction Program till 2020.

Expecting that biological resources protection and its sustainable utilization will be pressing issues in economic sustainable development in the future from actual investigation materials of the country in Sep, 1990, DPRK academy of science made and proposed the long-term plan on conservation and its sustainable use to government after conducting comprehensive investigation on forest resource, fishery resource, wild animal and plant resources and medicinal resource.

On the basis of this, the drawing up of NBSAP and National Report of biodiversity conservation was conducted in 1994, which was related with performance of duty as a party member of CBD.

However, severe flood damage of 1995, 1996 and unprecedented long drought of 1997 have brought yield decrease in agricultural sector of DPRK.

And, we could not but suffer economic hardships like energy shortage due to the economic blockade of imperialist aligned forces on DPRK.

Therefore, food and energy shortage, and hard economic situation have to be accompanied with the universal deterioration of eco-environment.

In such a situation, the DPRK government organized the work to activate economy by utilizing previously provided economic foundation and raise agricultural and electric power production at first, and restore devastated eco-environment.

DPRK’s NBSAP was developed in 1998 in such a political and economic background.

Although NBSAP was mapped out in difficult economic state of the country, all relevant government agencies in the sector of conservation and utilization positively participated in making the document.

Particularly, administrative officials and experts of several agencies such as agriculture, forestry, fishery, public health, science, education, land management and cultural preservation, participated in developing action plan and 2 meetings that were hosted by the Academy of Sciences.

By financial support of GEF, 2 national workshops were organized, and national and international demands could be fully reflected in NBSAP.

The DPRK’s SBSAP could be fully completed through comprehensive investigation report on Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use which was already developed by the Academy of Science in the period of 1989~1992.

And in the establishment of NBSAP, we played full role to reflect the international demand in making documents for global negotiators who were dispatched by GEF.

First of all, in view of serious economic condition in the country, some issue points can be taken.

In DPRK, NBSAP is closely related with general land construction program and the later one is to be realized after reflecting it in the national economic development plan.

State budget considered in the third session of the 10^th Supreme People’s Assembly in April 2000, includes 19801030000 won for total exports and 20018210000 won for expenditure. The estimate income increased comparing with that of 1998.

Last year, the SPRK government offered many budget share to land construction and planted 833,000,000 trees and increased capacity of nursery by 3.8 times in the sector of forestation.

Total estimate income and expenditure of DPRK’s government, being 20,405,320,000 won each, expect that much portion will be concentrated to land and environment management.

Major characteristics in performance of DPRK’s BPSAP, is expecting the mobilizing inexhaustible force of masses.

Due to the repeated natural disaster in 1996, the government of DPRK enacted one month in the spring and autumn as the month of general mobilization for land construction and took state measure to organize mobilizing masses in the improvement of afforestation and water conservancy such as tree planting and river and road adjustment.

Ministry of land and environment protection is in charge of technical work. The main objective during the month of land construction in this year is to accelerate national tree planting, which is focusing on planting trees on the naked mountain at present.

DPRK’s BSAP has close connection with management of agriculture, forestry, sanatorium and water resource.

For agro-eco environment protection and sustainable agricultural development, the main objective of NBSAP is to put efforts to prevent soil erosion by creating eco-agriculture and resource cycle agriculture in seven ecological sections, and enable resource-cycle and sustainable agriculture to be fully provided by greatly increasing bio-production, mainly the grain production, of the whole region and bringing resource potentiality to the maximum.

Presently, Ministry of Agriculture becomes the master and puts strenuous efforts for the acceleration of this work.

Forestry sector sets the goal at forestation and planting trees, and proceeds this work by planning to plant 2000000 ha of forest area till 2005.

Fishery sector aims at increasing fish culture on a large scale and establishing utilization discipline of river, coast and marine aquatic area and developing fishing industry into a resource management type. These works are in the process of promotion.

For improvement of water resource management, fishery is set out as a major objective with restriction on emission of polluting materials, intensification of forestation and water conservancy, extensive adjustment of medium and small size power stations, and construction of large hydropower plant.

Population growth, overuse of resources and climatic changes are major threatening causes.

DPRK has brought about 3,000,000 of population growth for 10 years, which increased from 19,060,000 in 1986 to 22,110,000 in 1996.

The annual average rainfall of DPRK is about 1,200 mm. However, the seasonal and regional precipitation distributions have severe differences.

Particularly, it is dry in spring, and 60% of annual precipitation concentrates in July~August. And 80% of land area is mountainous and the valley topography is sloppy. Accordingly, it is in the danger of soil erosion and it has a natural geographical condition in which severe destruction of ecosystem may take place.

Together with this, recent years’ repeated natural disaster and economic difficulties have brought overuse of natural resources and destruction of eco-environment.

In such a circumstances, the NBSAP of DPRK established strategy objectives and action plans to develop agriculture, forestry, fishery, Koryo medicine( traditional medicine), sanatorium and tourism related with economic development in the direction of sustainable utilization.

And positive measures were taken to increase the number of protected areas, improve protection and management capability and manage wild animal and plant resources like endangered and rare animals and plants for Biodiversity conservation.

NBSAP confirmed 696927 ha (5.68% of land area) of natural protected areas among 2428600 ha (19.78% of land area) of total DPRK’s protected areas and it was emphasized to put efforts to protection and management of 588927 ha(4.8% of land area) of natural protected area.

Else, NBSAP reconfirmed 12 fresh water fishery resource reserve (3395 ha) and 15 coastal fishery resource reserve(19450 ha), etc.

Issues are proposed in confirmation of management goals in every protected areas and taking comprehensive management measures which are based on opinions of relevant sectors, particularly positive participation of local people in management of protected area, and enabling protected areas to be profits of populations in a given region.

IUCN	Nature, Protected area	Number	Area (ha)
Strict Nature Reserve	7 Nature Reserves except Mt. Paekdu Nature Reserve	8	60,600
Nature Park	20 Nature Parks except Mt. Keumgang Nature Park	21	169,900
Nature Monuments	Districts for preserving natural monuments	291	51,191
Nature Monuments	Special Reserve	12	19,000
Wild Reserve	Plant Reserve	14	29,330
	Animal Reserve	14	94,071
	Seabird Reserve	6	189
	Migrator (wetland) Reserve	12	19000
Landscape Reserve	Supung Lake	24	147,646
Landscape Reserve	Landscape Reserve	23
Total			588,927

About 20 priority projects are confirmed through wide discussion process including National workshop and experts discussion of natural geographical condition and present state of Biodiversity resource.

As mentioned above, National Biodiversity strategy and Action Plan is closely related with the General Land construction Plan of DPRK and will be implemented by applying it in economic development plan.

The present questions of Biodiversity management in DPRK are: restoring the destructed ecosystem by natural disaster and overuse and strengthening the anti-flora afforestation, close combination with increasement of food production and improvement of agricultural ecosystem environment, in-situ conservation of endangered and rare species and improvement of natural reserve management.

The implementation of NBSAP of DPRK also depends on how to build the capacity of officers, scientists and technicians who are in charge of the protection, management and public masses, as man decides everything.

The Academy of Sciences and the government body of DPRK which are in charge of comprehensive development of scientific and technology for Biodiversity protection and management play an important role in the implementation of NBSAP.

The Academy of Sciences takes measures to concentrate forces to significant section of implementation of NBSAP by reforming the scientific and technical forces, and pays great attention to expand the improved models in Biodiversity protection and management.

Ministry of Land and Environmental Protection of DPRK is in charge of general plan of land construction making and operates the spring and autumn land and construction work and plays the role of administrate managing body to fully carry out the targets of NBSAP.

In order to fully implement NBSAP, the Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Land and Environment Protection should have close relation and develop the concrete operation including the cross-sections of strategy and action plan.

The Environmental protection measurement committee in cabinet of DPRK is the coordinating body which discusses and take measures on the national problems arising in the improvement of environmental protection.

The Environmental Protection measurement Committee includes officials from Ministries under Cabinet, therefore, it monitors and assesses the policy of related sections on NBSAP implementation signed by cabinet and coordinates the relation between cross-sections and fully implements the “Convention on Biodiversity”.

The government of DPRK is preparing the report to submit COP in order to implement the duty as a party member of “Convention on Biodiversity”.

This work is now proceeded by the Natural Environmental coordinating committee of DPRK.

NBSAP planning in DPRK was mainly proceeded in 1998 and under implementation in 1999.

In this period, GEF ratified the medium project“Biodiversity management of Mt. Myohyang Natural Park” for the implementation of “Convention on Biodiversity” in Jan. 2000.

GEF is now reviewing the medium project “Biodiversity management of Korean West coast in DPRK”.

For the importance of environmental protection work including Biodiversity conservation, the Government of DPRK issued these laws before and after UNCED: “Law on Forest” (1992), “Law On City management” (1992), “Law on Construction” (1992), “Law on Forest” (1995), “Law On survival of cultural relics” (1995), “Law on water resources” (1997), “Law on Prevention of Sea pollution” (1997), “Law on useful animal protection” (1998).

As a result, the legal base for NBSAP implementation is firmly provided. Lessons achieved in the planning and implementation of NBSAP is first of all, to make the public masses participate in this work and play a role as masters.

Although the plan is wonderful, success cannot be achieved unless the mass are aware of its importance and actively participate in its implementation.

Therefore, it is necessary to combine the land protection work, which is organized in every spring and autumn by the government of DPRK, with Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use.

ESP. for the full implementation of NBSAP, it is important to make the project realistically contribute to the life improvement of local people.

Because of this, NBSAP should solve both prospective and present benefit of relevant locality.

Some problems are proposed in creating several model unites and expanding them for the implementation of NBSAP.

NBSAP of DPRK was made with considering such problems but it still has mistakes for the creation and expansion of practical models.

Furthermore, it is important to heighten the role of scientific and researching organs and make the scientists and technicians participate in creating good models of ecosystem and environmental protection, and training managers who will play a leading role in this work.

NBSAP in Northeast and Central East Asia should pay attention to the training of young talents.

Biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use is the work for present generation and posterity. At the same time, it is very a difficult work containing issues that should be resolved immediately and in the future. Furthermore, biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use should be considered differently according to natural and social conditions in a given country.

Therefore, biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use is a issue which cannot be delayed and it is very important to find out the best and fastest way of resolving this issue, as it is the duty of the present generation.