Suncheon City Goes All Out to Control Pine Wilt Disease Until March Next Year

Approximately 18,400 Trees Scheduled for Pest Control and Preventive Injections

[Suncheon=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Suncheon City, Jeollanam-do (Mayor Heo Seok) announced on the 26th that it will carry out pine wilt disease control work, including felling infected and other dead trees and preventive tree injections, until March next year to prevent the spread of pine wilt disease.

Pine wilt disease first occurred in 2010 in Seongsan-ri, Haeryong-myeon, and currently, 166 villages and neighborhoods including Woldeung-myeon and Seo-myeon have been designated as pine export prohibition zones, with control work conducted annually.

The city established a control strategy based on accurate pine wilt disease damage survey data obtained through drone, aerial, and ground surveillance for customized regional control.

This control project will focus all efforts on increasing control efficiency through integrated control by felling about 14,000 infected and other dead trees within the export prohibition zones, executing shredding or fumigation work depending on local conditions, and administering preventive tree injections to about 4,400 trees around infected trees.

Additionally, from the 29th of this month to the 8th of next month, a 10-day “Special Autumn Pine Tree Movement Crackdown” will be conducted to prevent the artificial spread of pine wilt disease.

This crackdown will inspect 661 pine-related businesses and firewood farms in cooperation with the Suncheon National Forest Management Office, with particular promotion to prohibit firewood movement targeting farms using firewood.

An official from the city’s Forestry Department stated, “Preventing the spread of pine wilt disease requires the interest and voluntary participation of local residents,” and added, “We will strive to restore Suncheon City to a pine wilt disease-free area as soon as possible through systematic surveillance and complete control during the control period.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.