Thanks to satellite data from NASA and Google, researchers discovered that North Korea has begun logging the Mount Paekdu Biosphere Reserve, a 326,000-acre United Nations forest preserve and habitat of the endangered Siberian tiger.
Professor Guofan Shao of Purdue University – who studies Mount Paekdu remotely using satellite and sensors – noticed that perhaps 75% of the Mount Paekdu preserve’s uninhabited core area had been deforested after observing the area using NASA and Google imaging technologies. Furthermore, North Korea’s stringent visitation policies and less-than-transparent government hamper ecological researchers’ efforts to determine the extent of the logging. Says Professor Shao:
Particularly in the core area, there should be no human activity – no deforestation […] But when you look at the data with Google Earth, you can see the forest is no longer intact […] I don’t really understand what’s going on in the nature area […] They may want to grow something, or they may just want the timber.
The adjacent biosphere on the Chinese side – the Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve – had experienced tree loss as well, but this was from the prior overharvesting of pine nuts, a practice that has been banned in that area since 2007. Our guess as to what North Korea is up to? They’re building a habitat for Pulgasari, natch.
https://gizmodo.com/kim-jong-il-is-dead-heres-his-monster-movie-344306
[Via Purdue University. Photo via globalman’s Panaramio.]
