Pine Wilt Disease Spreads Across South Korea as Lawmakers Demand National Response
South Korea faces a worsening pine wilt disease crisis as infected trees surged to 1,772,985, marking a 19.3% increase compared to 2025. Lawmakers on the National Assembly’s Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee criticized the current containment strategy during an audit at the National Assembly on October 20, calling for a centralized, state-led overhaul of pest management operations.
Funding Shortfalls Leave 660,000 Infected Trees Untreated
Legislators pointed to severe funding shortfalls at the local government level as a primary driver of the spread. Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Gae-ho noted that more than 660,000 infected trees remain untreated nationwide. Local authorities with low financial self-reliance struggle under a funding structure that requires them to shoulder 30% of pest control costs.
Pine wilt disease control is not an exclusive office of local governments but a national disaster, and it cannot be stopped with a structure that forces local governments with financial self-reliance in the 10% range to shoulder 30%,
Lee said, calling for 100% national funding for control projects alongside flexible timing and stage-specific customized prevention.
People Power Party lawmaker Lee Sang-hwi warned that the escalating scale of infection threatens to devastate the country’s landscape. If this trend continues, we will have to change the lyrics of the national anthem to Metasequoia,
he said.
In response, Korea Forest Service Minister Park Eun-shik stated that the agency is establishing national prevention belts with spacing buffers and applying preventive tree injections to safeguard designated pine preservation areas.
Illegality and Ghost Companies in Forestry Business Operations
The parliamentary audit also uncovered widespread regulatory failures regarding forestry business corporations and technicians. Democratic Party lawmaker Moon Geum-ju reported that illegal activities are suspected across 1,073 forestry corporations and 4,716 forestry technicians.
Moon urged authorities to block investigation-evading closures used to bypass penalties for qualification lending and demanded a complete restructuring of supervision. People Power Party lawmaker Lee Sung-kwon cited government joint investigation data showing that suspicious violations appeared in 1,073 of 1,907 registered forestry corporations nationwide, creating a proliferation of paper-only operations where technicians lease their names without working on site.
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