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NJ-based non-profit to deliver 30 tons of tree seedlings to North Korea

December 30, 2014

OKGM chief Kim Ho-jin, right, poses with former prime minister of South Korea Goh Kun. (Korea Times file)

By Lee Jin-soo

Thirty tons of tree seedlings will be delivered to North Korea from January to February by One Green Korea Movement.

OGKM, a New Jersey-based non-profit which aims to plant 6.5 billion trees in the isolated country, helped plant tens of thousands of trees in North Korean regions including North Hamgyong Province in past years.

This delivery — estimated at $5 million — includes 15 kinds of seedlings, among them Korean pine, Japanese larch, Japanese maple and fruit trees. Donations and support came from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, ASEAN-Korea Forest Cooperation, International Union of Forest Research Organizations and Green Asia Organization.

North Korea is a greenhouse-producing nation due to forest denudation that resulted from the country’s famine in the 1990s.

Seedlings are planted at a Pyongyang tree nursey and grow for three years before being transplanted to different regions of the country.

OGKM President Kim Ho-jin, who visited North Korea to deliver the seeds Dec. 27, said the initiative for 6.5 billion trees was expected to take 10 years but that, thanks to the help of international organizations, the project’s expected finish date has decreased by three years.