Samcheok uses drones to find pine trees hit by pine wilt disease in steep forest

The city of Samcheok in South Korea's Gangwon Province is flying drones to look for pine trees that may be infected with pine wilt disease in mountain areas that workers struggle to reach, alongside surveys from ground vehicles, the city said on 9 November. The drones let it check large areas of forest around outbreaks from the air.

The programme for the second half of the year, with a budget of KRW 436 million, runs until next month and includes preventive tree injections on 98.35 hectares in Dogyeong-dong and the removal of 376 dead or at-risk trees in Obun-dong, 7 of them confirmed as infected. In the first half of the year the city spent KRW 633 million to treat 151.4 hectares and remove 844 dead trees, including 15 infected ones.