In October 2024, thousands of pine trees began to be cut for relocation road construction linked to the Hongcheon pumped-storage project. The logged area reached 10.96 hectares, including 2,256 pine trees, directly damaging the livelihood base of the village.
One of the biggest controversies was that the logging began before the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy issued the project's implementation approval. Residents and environmental groups condemned the work as premature and procedurally unjustified.
Many of the felled trees were decades old, with some more than 100 years old. For residents, the destruction of the forest is not just economic loss but the dismantling of a shared way of life built around the pine nut woods.
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