Project monitoring with EU Food Security of Office – EU-project soon to be completed

06/30/2017

Since Autumn 2015, the Hanns Seidel Foundation Korea is implementing the project “Improvement of rural living conditions through healthy forests” with local partners and funded by the European Union (EU). After almost 3 years of implementation, the project is soon to be completed. A project visit with Peter Ross, Team Leader of the Food Security of Office (FSO) by the EU in Pyongyang, took place. All practical project sites were visited and involved staff were interviewed to assess the project.

During a visit to the Central Tree Nursery in Pyongyang, the Training Centre for Sustainable Forest Management was visited. The training facility is one part of the project and serves as a hub for daily lectures for North Korean foresters. The staff of the site also manages the newly established “Hwanggeumsan” (Golden Mountain) web portal. The website is accessible within the North Korean intranet and provides latest publications on forestry, online lectures and news on forestry topics, and has more than 150 daily accesses.

A visit to the model reforestation site in Sangseo-Ri, Taedong-Gun, Pyongan- Namdo, gave the opportunity to assess the outcome of another part of the project. The site was reforested and today more than 80 hectare of mixed forest covers a formerly barren landscape. The site was established under scientific criteria with the support of foreign consultants and is used now to share best-practice examples on successful reforestation efforts in North Korea. The site also provides additional ecosystem services to the local population, such as the prevention of erosion through an improved soil formation, flood regulation, and food supply from valuable tree species, such as Aronia and Chestnut Trees.

A group photo at the Training Centre at the Central Tree Nursery in Pyongyang

While the practical sites most obviously show the outcome of the project, the main part of the project focused on capacity-building. 24 forest experts from North Korea visited a total of 4 trainings in Mongolia and China and the trainings were used to introduce best-practice examples and topics, such as tree nursery management and forestry inventories.

More than 190 participants attended international workshops in Pyongyang on 4 occasions. Experts from European countries including Germany and Sweden gave lectures on topics such as Pest Control Management, practical lessons at the training facility in Pyongyang and at the model reforestation in Sangseo-Ri and served as consultants for the implementation of the project.

The lessons learned from trainings abroad and international workshops were then provided to more than 630 participants during local trainings, organized and implemented by the North Korean project partners with the guidance of local experts. HSF Korea also supported the publication of textbooks on topics such as “Questions and Answers on Tree Nurseries” and “Suitable Tree Species for Reforestation”.

Through the activities, the technical knowledge of the partner organization was increased and contacts with relevant technical and scientific counter-parts in China and Mongolia were established. Some of the contacts lead to a further and independent exchange and an internationalization of the North Korean forestry sector. The project sites provide space for the training of foresters and a showcase for sustainable and successful reforestation efforts, while improving the livelihood of the local population through “cash crops” and additional benefits from ecosystem services around villages in Sangseo-Ri.

The project will be finished at the end of this year and the project partners agreed to proceed with the cooperation and to develop the efforts in the field of forestry further.

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