38-Percentage-Point Gap in Pine Wilt Control Rates... Lee Gaeho: "Local Funding Burden Must Be Eliminated"

Local governments required to cover 30% of control costs, hampering response
Calls for control measures tailored to climate and damage severity levels

The control rate for pine wilt disease was found to differ by 38 percentage points between areas managed directly by the Korea Forest Service and those managed by local governments. Rep. Lee Gaeho said the current funding structure, which requires local governments to provide 30% of control costs, is delaying control efforts, and called for full funding from the national government.

Rep. Lee Gaeho of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly’s Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee, represents Damyang, Hampyeong, Yeonggwang and Jangseong in the integrated special city of Jeonnam-Gwangju. He raised the issue at a parliamentary audit of the Korea Forest Service on October 20.

Rep. Lee Gaeho

The control rates for this year, disclosed by Rep. Lee, were 99.9% in areas managed directly by the Korea Forest Service and 61.9% in areas managed by local governments. More than 660,000 infected trees nationwide have yet to be treated.

Rep. Lee identified local governments’ fiscal conditions as the reason for the gap. Of this year’s disease-control budget, 100.8 billion won comes from the national government, and the program is funded through a combination of 70% national funding and 30% local funding. Meanwhile, the average fiscal self-reliance ratio among the 166 cities, counties and districts affected by the disease is 16.2%, while the figure for South Jeolla’s 22 cities and counties is just 11.2%. Rep. Lee said delays in securing local funding can cause authorities to miss the optimal period for control, allowing infected trees left untreated to fuel a resurgence.

The scale of the outbreak has grown sharply in recent years. This year, 1,772,985 trees were infected, up 19.3% from 1,486,338 last year. That is about 4.7 times the 378,079 trees infected in 2022.

The volume of trees to be treated this year has reached 3.09 million. Rep. Lee said a “third major outbreak” is now underway, following outbreaks that affected 1.37 million trees in 2007 and 2.18 million in 2014.

While damage is concentrated in some areas, the disease is also spreading to other regions. A total of 1.45 million trees—82% of all damaged trees—were concentrated in six areas classified as “severe,” including Pohang, Gyeongju, Ulju, Andong, Miryang and Changnyeong, and 21 areas classified as “serious,” including Gumi and Dalseong in Daegu. The number of affected cities, counties and districts rose from 154 to 166, with new cases reported since May in Gangdong, Seoul; Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province; and Nam-gu, Daegu, among other places. Another 102 areas are classified as having minor damage.

In Gwangju and South Jeolla, the number of infected trees increased 4.1-fold, from 38,090 last year to 154,890 this year. In the Chungcheong region, the figure rose more than 24-fold, from 5,802 to 140,749. The damage, once concentrated in the Yeongnam region, is spreading to the southwestern and central regions, Rep. Lee said.

Calls were also made to change the timing and methods of disease control.

Rising winter temperatures have advanced the emergence of the insect vectors by nine days for the northern pine sawyer beetle and two days for the Japanese pine sawyer beetle. However, the control periods remain fixed: August through April of the following year for the northern pine sawyer beetle, and September through May of the following year for the Japanese pine sawyer beetle. Rep. Lee said control schedules in the field need to be adjusted to account for climate change, and monitoring should begin earlier.

Rep. Lee also pointed to the problem of applying the same methods in areas where the disease has only recently appeared and in areas where damage has accumulated. He said repeatedly felling individual trees and fumigating them is not enough to prevent a recurrence, even in severely affected areas.

“Controlling pine wilt disease is a national disaster response, not a task exclusive to local governments,” Rep. Lee said, calling for the national government to cover 100% of disease-control project costs. He added, “Control schedules should be adjusted flexibly in response to climate change, and different methods should be used depending on the stage of damage.”

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