Present at an event held at the People's Palace of Culture Monday were officials of the Ministry of Land and Environment Conservation and other ministries and national institutions, the visiting delegation of the United Nations Environment Program and members of missions of international organizations and cooperation missions working in the DPRK.

Addressing it were Kim Song Hak, vice-minister of Land and Environment Conservation, and Christian Marx, head of the UNEP delegation.

They noted that the UNEP set "Forests: Nature at Your Service" as theme for World Environment Day this year.

Forests have an important role to play in environmental protection, they said, stressing the need to strive to protect forests and raise the public interest in this work.

Then there were speeches calling for decisively improving the forest management as required by the new century.

On the same day, a fine art and writing exhibition of schoolchildren from across the country took place at the Pyongyang Students and Children's Palace.

Present were officials of the Education Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officials concerned, schoolchildren from each province who presented excellent works and members of the visiting UNEP delegation and missions of international organizations here.

After speeches were made, the participants looked round more than 50 fine art works and 40 odd literary works on the subject of environment.

A national schoolchildren's quiz on environment was held at the Pyongyang Students and Children's Palace Tuesday on the same occasion.