Return to *North Korean Studies*
Roger Dean Du Mars, South China Morning Post, 24 April 2001
SEOUL - Preoccupied with salvaging a moribund economy, North Korea is grimly watching its environment rapidly deteriorate, according to South Korean Government officials. Pyongyang's emergency efforts to grow food and heat homes have led to the indefinite setting-aside of environmental concerns, they say, warning that such total neglect may place future recovery out of reach. Three-quarters of the North's factories operate without any system to minimise pollutants. The Kim-chek Steel Refinery and the Chung-jin Chemical Fibre Factory in the city of Chung-in spew out plumes of poisonous gases, and about 30 per cent of the residents suffer from liver cancer or tuberculosis, research by the South's Unification Ministry shows.
A carbide re-treatment plant in South Hamgyong province leaks vast quantities of carbide, a highly toxic chemical. Animals that drink from nearby puddles of water have died. In Hamhung, nitrogen monoxide and chlorine gas are released by the Hungnam Allied Fertiliser plant. Many of the workers are inflicted with bronchitis and an array of lung diseases, according to the ministry's dossier. Most of the water in North Korea is poisonous, it says, and drinking tap water can prove fatal. Even in Pyongyang, water is undrinkable. Factories in the Nampo region discharge a slew of chemicals that end up in the Daedong river - which flows through Pyongyang and supplies the capital with drinking water. The North's major rivers, the Tumen and the
Yalu, are seriously polluted, while fish poisoned by discharges from coalmines and cement factories float on the Ahp-rok River, the ministry says.
Son Ghee-woong, an official at the South's National Unification Research Centre, said the North's inefficient, unproductive, desperate economy was pushing factories on a crash course of exploitation. "North Korea is at a point where it needs to quickly reform its environmental policies to prevent catastrophic damage," he said. As in the South, the North sidelined environmental concerns to make way for economic growth at breakneck speed in the 1960s. Pyongyang's "Seven-Year Development Reform", which concentrated on building up heavy industry, first began contaminating the air and water. To gear up for an invasion of the South and to protect its borders, Pyongyang put most of its energies into strengthening its military. Little thought was given to the environment. Yet Kim Il-sung, North Korea's founder, used to boast of his country's pristine rivers and lakes and flourishing forests. As a so-called "paradise on earth", North Korea was intended to glisten with natural beauty.
In 1972, the North began ordering pollution curbs - filtering factory smoke and chemical discharges into rivers. An Environment Protection Law followed in 1986, under which air pollution was monitored and water purification stepped up. But analysts say these measures have totally failed. Lee Min-bok, a North Korean defector who recently worked as a manager of Pyongyang's Agricultural Department, said a dearth of regulations was causing massive harm. "Pollution caused by the factories is reaching critical levels and the bulk of the mountains are now treeless," he said. "Without more environment laws, the water, air and soil will die."
Passing laws is only half the battle. Getting them enforced is proving equally problematic. Factories are under strict orders to meet production schedules. Trees are indiscriminately cut down to heat homes, for cooking and to clear lots for growing vegetables. The lack of trees exacerbates flooding, which in turn damages the soil. An official at the Ministry of Unification said he regularly received news of fresh environmental disasters in the North. "After the air and rivers, we are learning about the ocean shore, where all the shellfish and sea plants are dead," he said. "Industrial waste is everywhere in North Korea