In Korea there are many good people who devote their lives to taking care of the green woods.
Among them is Pak Kyong Nam, chief ranger of Obong-ri of the Pongsan County Forestry Management Station in North Hwanghae Province, and his family.
Chief ranger Pak Kyong Nam is the eldest of the nine brothers and sisters. He volunteered to become a ranger with a resolve to make the mountains of his village thick forest, following in the footsteps of his father Pak Sung Hwan who was Merited Ranger. He immediately buckled down to afforestation for putting his father’s will into practice together with his younger brothers and sisters. Keeping in mind the request of his father to defend and cultivate the forest generation after generation, he found out every place for tree planting, going up and down high and low mountains of Obong-ri together with his brothers and sisters. On the basis of it, he made a detailed prospective plan and powerfully pushed ahead with the forest creation, conservancy and management as planned, pooling their wisdom and zeal.
In early spring, he went to tree nursery between woods, with good-quality manure on his back, before others and in summer, he weeded the nursery under the scorching heat of the sun.
In the daytime he was busy with afforestation and at night he sat together with his brothers and sisters to acquire the knowledge of forest.
Chief ranger Pak Kyong Nam led not only his brothers and sisters but also their family members to dedicate their pure conscience to manuring and tending tree saplings and planting trees with the pride of being members of the family of rangers. But the land with forest in Obong-ri was so barren and stony that it was not so easy to plant and cultivate trees. They had to pull out shrubs, pick out stones and dig pits deep to plant trees. In addition, they had to spread humus soil on the ground more than other areas.
Although they planted trees with so great sincerity, the trees failed to strike their roots and withered in many cases. Seeing them, they felt as if they were lacking in their sincerity devoted to afforestation. They devoted all their sincerity to planting and cultivating trees with a resolve to create thick green woods in their native place by making themselves a nutrient growing each of saplings.
Their unusual devotion to make flowers open even on a rock eventually enabled the trees to strike strong roots in the crevices of rocks as well.
Today, thanks to their devoted efforts, larch and pine-nut trees and other trees of good species have grown thick to make the mountains of Obong-ri greener.
Merited Ranger Pak Kyong Nam says:
“People affectionately call mine ‘family of rangers’.
Whenever hearing them, I feel a great pride of working in the forest field. I will carry out the afforestation more scrupulously and in a far-sighted way without forgetting even a moment the gratitude of the fatherland that has put me forward as a socialist patriot of merit. I will also lead my brothers and sisters better so that they can devote their pure conscience to the afforestation.”
