Greetings, NK News readers! Welcome back to Ask a North Korean, where you, yes you, can email in your questions and have them answered by our very own North Korean defector writers.

This week’s question comes from Kay, who asks about the environment, rivers, and pollution in the DPRK.

Natural beauty definitely exists in North Korea — you can see this, among other places, in photos released after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s relatively recent visit to Mount Kumgang.

But, as In-hua Kim explains, not all nature in North Korea is as well looked after as it is