Gyeongnam Province expands ‘tree species conversion’ to prevent spread of pine wilt disease

(Changwon = Yonhap News) Reporter Jeong-Hoon Lee = Gyeongnam Province announced on the 27th that it will expand tree species conversion by cutting down all pine trees and planting other trees to prevent the spread of pine wilt disease.

In response to the third outbreak of pine wilt disease, the province is promoting tree species conversion while simultaneously carrying out existing control measures such as removal of damaged trees and vaccination of trees.

To prevent pine wilt disease from occurring at all in the future, we will increase the area converted to tree species by logging all infected and dead pine trees as well as normally growing pine trees and planting coniferous trees (cypress) that are not susceptible to pine wilt disease, or broad-leaved trees such as oak and lily that are highly economical and resistant to forest fires.

For public forests, national and local governments carry out tree species conversion on their own, and for private forests, tree species conversion is carried out with the consent of forest owners.

The province began converting tree species in earnest last year.

Following last year's 360 ha, 640 ha of forest will be converted to tree species this year.

Next year, we set a goal of converting more than 800 ha of forest to tree species.

In Gyeongnam, all 18 cities and counties are areas where pine wilt disease occurs.

Miryang-si and Changnyeong-gun are areas in the ‘extreme’ stage where pine wilt disease is most severe and are special control zones.

Pine wilt disease is a disease in which small wilt nematodes, approximately 1 mm in size, that live inside the bodies of the northern and pine wilts, infiltrate pine trees and block moisture and movement passages, causing the trees to dry out and die.

There is no cure, so 100% of infected pine trees die.

It first occurred in 1988 in pine trees on Geumjeong Mountain in Dongrae-gu, Busan, and went through a second outbreak between 2014 and 2016 before entering the third outbreak stage last year.

As of May this year, the Korea Forest Service counted 1.17 million trees infected with pine wilt disease in 166 cities, counties and districts nationwide.