Farmers work on a small plot | Image: NK News (June 17, 2016)
North Korea marked its annual Tree-planting Day on Tuesday mobilizing workers across the country to plant saplings in depleted forests as part of a long-running reforestation campaign.
But while leader Kim Jong Un has made the project a priority, the planting campaigns have long come into conflict with the practice of using hillside areas in the countryside for private farms known as “sotoji.”
North Korea marked its annual Tree-planting Day on Tuesday mobilizing workers across the country to plant saplings in depleted forests as part of a long-running reforestation campaign.
But while leader Kim Jong Un has made the project a priority, the planting campaigns have long come into conflict with the practice of using hillside areas in the countryside for private farms known as “sotoji.”
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Andrei Lankov is a Director at NK News and writes exclusively for the site as one of the world's leading authorities on North Korea. A graduate of Leningrad State University, he attended Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University from 1984-5 - an experience you can read about here. In addition to his writing, he is also a Professor at Kookmin University.