The land and environmental protection sector has taken scientific and innovative measures to protect land and improve ecological environment and is implementing them persistently.

Officials of the Ministry of Land and Environment Protection and relevant units are intensifying detailed operations to achieve remarkable successes in land management this year.

Substantial measures are being employed to minimize flood damage, with the focus put on protecting the lives and property of the people and land.

Practical steps are being taken to successfully complete the dredging of rivers, embankment, stone covering, afforestation for erosion control and construction and repair of coastal protection facilities for the objects prone to flood damage, which have been planned this year, by mobilizing all forces and means, and work out a yearly plan for perpetuating the bank, dredging rivers and building an embankment in an island area of North Phyongan Province which suffered flood damage last year.

Ways for carrying them out are detailed as the survey and assessment of the risk of inundation in the lower reaches of the rivers according to the amount of drainage from reservoir dams have been chosen as an important research task.

Concentrating efforts on planting many trees of great economic value, realistic measures are being taken to improve the forest ecological environment of the country by pushing ahead with forest restoration.

Measures are being taken to make progress in turning all mountains into “gold and treasure mountains” by planting forests including wild fruit forests and firewood forests, securing seeds of trees and producing saplings in an efficient way.

Measures are also taken to protect forests, precious assets of the country, including the repair of firebreaks before the period prone to forest fire, the establishment of a well-regulated system of monitoring, information and mobilization for firefighting, the production of various biological agrochemicals for the timely control of forest blights and insects.

While accelerating the preparations for the operation of the Academy of Forest Science and intensifying guidance over the national forest science research, organizational work is being carried out in a far-sighted way to push ahead with the construction of several tree nurseries and research units.

Preparations are also being made to map out the national forest restoration plan with the main emphasis put on radically improving the forest ecological environment and laying the foundations for regional development.

Measures are being discussed to improve the technical conditions of roads, the image of the country, and step up the technical reconstruction of highways, tourist roads and major roads.

The assignment of duties and formation of forces for mapping out the master plan for land development reflecting the green medium- and long-term plans are detailed across the country so as to make contributions to land management, economic development and improvement of the people’s living standards while preserving the characteristics of relevant areas.

The problems of reinforcing environment monitoring networks are also being discussed, including the setting up on an experimental basis of the posts for monitoring river water quality in real time.