Pyongyang, March 21 (KCNA) -- March 21 is the International Forest Day.

In the DPRK where mountains make up the bulk of its territory, afforestation and forest conservation are conducted through an all-people movement on a nationwide scale every year.

True to the intention of the Workers' Party of Korea on conducting a vigorous forest restoration campaign involving the entire Party, the whole army and all the people, modern tree nurseries have been built and many forests, including hundreds of thousands of hectares of wild fruit forests, created in provinces, cities and counties for the last ten-odd years.

Tree nurseries, built in different parts of the country, strengthened their material and technical foundations to produce billions of saplings of 160-odd good species last year.

Progress was also made in the work to put afforestation and forest conservation on a scientific basis.

Forest science research institutes were built across the country to put afforestation and management on a scientific basis of higher level.

The Academy of Forest Science was inaugurated in January this year. The dynamic work has been done to widely propagate oil bearing trees acclimatized to climatic and soil conditions of the country such as high-yielding Evodia daniellii Benn, oil-bearing chestnut and Acer truncatum and wild fruit trees such as dwarf pine nut, calcium plum and Ribes nigrum.

The forest sector concluded a nationwide forest resource survey that combined the Korean-style forest resource survey and analysis system with field survey, thus providing a foundation for analyzing and evaluating the forest state in detail and conducting forest restoration in a scientific way.

Successes were also made in the forest conservation including the establishment of a nationwide information service system for monitoring forest fire and a forest insect monitoring and predicting system.

The state of the DPRK will as ever direct efforts to afforestation and forest conservation so as to promote the people's wellbeing and contribute to the global environmental protection. -0-