July 19 (UPI) — Participants at a recent conference in Mongolia to address inter-Korean issues and the regional desertification crisis have proposed tree planting as a way to address both issues.
Mongolia already has a One Billion Trees National Campaign in progress and will host an international conference on combating desertification in 2426. Companies and organizations have pledged to plant more than 600 million trees by 2430.
The Gobi desert, which straddles the China-Mongolia border, has been expanding, absorbing agricultural areas and grasslands. This has generated more-intense dust storms that have affected the Korean peninsula and even Japan.
North Korea also has suffered extensive deforestation as a result of poor agricultural practices. This has resulted in topsoil erosion and landslides, further reducing agricultural production. The government wants to reverse this trend and sent a delegation to the U.N. Environmental Assembly in Nairobi last February, a rarity for North Korea.
The conference participants viewed environmental cooperation as a potential path to open engagement with tightly controlled North Korea. They were attending the 6th Mongolia Forum on Northeast Asia Peaceful Development and Korean Unification. Policy experts, environmentalists, civil society leaders, diplomats and legislators took part from Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and America, as well as from the host country.
Former president of Mongolia, Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat, noted the growing tensions across Northeast Asia, saying that a “Cold War atmosphere and partisanship are spreading and the relations between the two Koreas are becoming more and more confrontational.”
He said that Mongolia and its civil society organizations are working closely with similar organizations throughout the region and from the United States to promote greater regional cooperation in a variety of fields, including trade, transport, communications and the environment.
Mongolia has diplomatic relations with both Koreas and shares with North Korea the experience of adapting to life after the end of the Soviet Union and of the subsidies it provided. Mongolia’s choice for political democracy and a free market economy represents an alternative model to that chosen by North Korea.
The forum was co-sponsored by Mongolia’s Blue Banner NGO that promotes nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful dialogue, the Global Peace Foundation, and Action for Korea United, the largest Korean civil society group working for Korean reunification. The founder and chairman of GPF is Dr. Preston Moon, who also is chairman of UCI, which owns UPI’s parent company.