Forest and Water Conservation is an Important Part of the Foundations of the Country

Chairman Kim Jong Il said:

"Comrade Kim Il Sung, saying that forest and water conservation is an important part of the foundations of the country, made sure that great efforts were directed to preserving the rivers and forests after liberation."

President Kim Il Sung visited the People's Republic of China with the delegation of the Party and the government in Oct, Juche 80(1991).

He was accompanied by President Jiang Ze Min to visit Jiangdu Irrigation Corporation in the City of Yang Zhou.

He warmly responded to the cheering crowd with the broad smile on his face, and looked at the widespread rice paddy fields and the white belt-resembling irrigation canal stretches, leaving his master-stroke autograph "Forest and water conservation is an important part of the foundations of the country." in the visitor's book.

President Jiang Ze Min, who read the autograph, said in jubilation and admiration that it was extremely wonderful. He also said that "Forest and water conservation is an important part of the foundations of the country.", it was the aphorism only President Kim Il Sung could come up with, offering a firm handclasp. This aphorism is a great one that only President Kim Il Sung, could write, who took the pains and devoted himself to the happiness of the people in his whole life with his on-the-spot guidance to every places of our country.

Forest and water conservation means to manage forests and rivers, preventing drought damages and flood disasters and making the natural environment helpful to the living of the people and the development of the national economy.

Forest conservation is an afforestation to prevent flooding and earth erosion. Meanwhile, water conservation is the water management and a nature-making project to continuously exploit water resources of the country for the improvement of the people's living standard and the development of the national economy, ensuring the life and security of the people and protecting the sectors of the national economy from natural disasters of flooding and drought as well as from all sorts of such water-related negative influences as hydro-environmental pollution and hydro-ecological damage.

From olden times, when agriculture was the main part of the economy, ‘mainstay', or ‘an important part of the foundations of the country' was commonly used in connection with agriculture, which led to ‘Forest and water conservation is an important part of the foundations of agriculture', meaning that good management of rivers and mountains ensures god harvest.

‘Forest and water conservation', ‘an important part of the foundations', which had been commonly used in connection with agriculture from olden times, came together into be a new aphorism ‘Forest and water conservation is an important part of the foundations of the country.' by President Kim Il Sung.

In recent years, there have been landfalls and flooding caused by torrential rains and frequent forest fires in parts of the world. It reminds again that forest and water conservation is none other than an important part of the foundations of the country which can be connected to not only good harvest but also the protection of the life and wealth of the country and the people and of land and natural resources. And it also makes my hat off to the sagacious aphorism of President Kim Il Sung.

In early years just after the liberation of Korea from the Japanese imperialist colonial rule, when the country fell into ruin as a result of Japanese colonial policy of exhaustive spoliation, President Kim Il Sung, with his far-sighted acumen, started projects to harness nature with the Pothong River improvement project. Then he planted trees on Munsu Hill, which was the start of the history of forest and water conservation.

Even in the period of the life-and-death-deciding, hard-fought war, he personally planted and grew Metasequoia around his office room, mapping out his grand plan to make the mountains of the country into forests. And also he visited professors and other scholars at Kim Il Sung University, putting forward the tasks to tame the Taedong River and the Kumya River to build the canal linking the Korean West and East Seas.

In order to translate such a grand plan, which he elaborated on in the period of the Fatherland Liberation War, into reality, he made sure, in the postwar period of rehabilitation, that tree-planting projects be run through a mass movement, thus turning all the mountains into forests, golden mountains, treasure mountains in a short span of time.

In such a project, forest conservation is painstaking work, but water conservation requires incomparably large amounts of labour, materials and funds.

After the war, President Kim Il Sung ensured that the project to tame the Taedong River be turned into the one involving the whole Party and the whole country.

First of all, he made sure that the irrigation project to harness the water of the Taedong River for agricultural water be carried out on a nationwide scale.

The Taedong River is one of the longest rivers in the DPR Korea, which, with around 620 tributaries, runs through the whole City of Pyongyang as well as such granaries of the country as South Phyongan Province, North and South Hwanghae Provinces.

In the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, in Sep, Juche 47(1958), he aroused the whole Party and the entire people to the campaign to expand the million-jongbo area under irrigation, establishing the systems of Phyongnam, Kiyang Sohung and Jaeryong irrigations utilizing the water of the Taedong River, with the building of reservoirs all over the country. That led to the achievement of the farmers' long cherished desire for agricultural water.

For sure, even unknown mountains and rivers are permeated with the devotion and the love for the country and the people, of President Kim Il Sung, who considered forest and water conservation to be an important part of the country and did his utmost, treasuring even a plant, a tree and a drop of water of the country.

Indeed, the territory of the DPR Korea is the property permeated with the patriotic affection and zeal of President Kim Il Sung, who regarded forest and water conservation as an important part of the country and tended mountains and rivers in his whole life.