DAEJEON — South Korea will create a national pest control belt along major transmission routes to stop the spread of pine wilt disease.
The Korea Forest Service said on the 16th that it will build 800 kilometers of the belt nationwide in stages by 2030.
The belt is the centerpiece of the agency's national control strategy. Measuring at least 2 kilometers wide, it is a state-led defense line established along the outer edges of damaged areas to keep the disease from reaching uninfected zones and to help lightly affected areas return to pest-free status more quickly.
Damage has been expanding rapidly, with roughly 1.77 million trees nationwide affected by pine wilt disease.
The agency said it will select project sites and build the belt in phases, weighing the extent of damage, the distribution of pine forests, terrain features and the urgency of control measures.
In the second half of this year, the Korea Forest Service will run a pilot project in national forests in the northern part of North Gyeongsang Province, including Uljin, to verify how the approach works in the field and how effective it is. Based on those results, the agency plans to expand the project in stages starting in 2027.
Within the belt, the agency will carry out tailored control measures based on local damage patterns, including forest tending, preventive tree injections and replacing pine with other species. It will also step up effectiveness through continued state-led surveillance and monitoring.
"The national pest control belt is a defense line built under state leadership to prevent pine wilt disease from spreading across the country," said Lee Won-hee, head of the Korea Forest Service's forest pest control division. "We will protect healthy pine forests through systematic surveillance and intensive control."