One day in May 2019 the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un visited a place to guide the training of the Korean People’s Army units.
At dawn he had a stroll in a dense pine grove there. Looking round the place, he said with satisfaction that there were many pine trees there and the scenery was really wonderful. Upon arriving at an observation post, he gazed at the pine trees growing around it before asking the officials accompanying him what species they were of.
A KPA officer answered that they were black pines and they grow scores of centimetres on average and 110 centimetres at the maximum in a year. Very pleased to hear that, Kim Jong Un said that they grew pretty fast.
He was so delighted to become aware of a good tree species.
An official told him that the officials and workers at the Kumya County Forestry Management Station brought seeds from black pines growing in the Thongchon area and acclimatized the tree through years of strenuous efforts and service personnel planted tens of thousands of saplings by bringing them from the station. After hearing him out, Kim Jong Un said that it was good if 30-centimetre-tall saplings of the tree produced at the Kumya County Forestry Management Station and transplanted on the seashore in 2015 grew about 60 centimetres in a year and that the forestry sector should be informed of this.
He was lost in thought for a good while and suggested naming the tree Kumya black pine.
That day he referred to the need to spread the species across the country.
Later the tree was propagated in North Hwanghae and Kangwon provinces, Nampho, Rason and other parts of the country.
