Tight control over access to the mountains and a special monitoring regime at checkpoints have pushed firewood prices up across all of North Korea's northern provinces. Residents complain of a severe shortage of fuel during the cold months.
The "forest restoration" policy of Kim Jong Un's totalitarian regime has turned the state forestry administrations into control agencies. The checkpoints set up in mountain districts have become places for bribery. North Korean forestry officials confiscate firewood at the checkpoints and sell it on the local market, leaving families in the country's northern provinces without fuel. North Koreans have nothing with which to heat their homes. This information has been gathered by journalists from the ASIAPRESS network's Rimjin-gang, whose sources reported from the Hyesan area in mid-February.
Kim Jong Un's regime has banned the felling of trees under what it calls its forest restoration policy. The forestry administrations, which come under the Ministry of Land and Environment Protection, have meanwhile set up checkpoints on the forest roads in the mountains. In practice these checkpoints have become toll points. ASIAPRESS has received information that officials demand 100,000 North Korean won per cubic metre of timber, which is roughly equivalent to two months of average wages in North Korea.
Although state policy provides that confiscated timber must be redistributed to the households that need it, well-placed sources say that this requirement is ignored at every level and the timber is sold on the market instead. "If the timber is undamaged, the checkpoint staff confiscate it. The forestry administration then sells it on the market," a well-informed source told the Rimjin-gang journalists. "They ignore these rules and do everything they can to make money."
Even legal firewood traders operating in the official markets have been unable to escape this situation. Timber inspection teams turn up at the sellers' stalls and demand proof of origin. Anyone without a permit from the forestry administration has their timber confiscated on the spot. Supplies from the timber-rich Paekam area, which was long the main source of fuel for the people of Hyesan, have fallen sharply. Controls have been stepped up, and a special permit is now required even to move construction debris, branches and bark. "Young and old alike head up into the mountains in desperation to get firewood, while the number of state employees enforcing the control rules and lining their own pockets at their fellow citizens' expense keeps growing," the source said.
As controls tighten along the timber supply routes, the extra costs are reflected in market prices. A bundle of about fifteen logs costs 5,000 won, while a tonne of coal, considered the minimum needed to heat a single North Korean household through the winter, costs around 800,000 won. Given that the average monthly wage in the country is around 50,000 won, it can be calculated that one tonne of coal costs more than an average year's income.
Among families unable to clear this hurdle, a practice has emerged that is known as "sharing the fireside". Several households join together to split the heating costs when none of them can afford fuel on its own. In the Hyesan region, where it still snows in April, temperatures were still below zero at the beginning of March.
It is estimated that North Korea lost 30% of its forests between 1990 and 2010, largely because households did whatever they could to obtain fuel to survive in harsh conditions. Because of the cold weather and the lack of money, people head into the mountains for fuel regardless of the checkpoints and the threat of confiscation.
*The ASIAPRESS Rimjin-gang information network operates in North Korea through partners who report on events in this closed country.