North Korea just can't seem to get a break. Every time you turn around they seem to be having another natural disaster. This time it's a spate of flooding that has wiped out huge swathes of farmland, killed hundreds of people, and destroyed the homes of an estimated 300,000 more. South Korea recently reported that the corpses of flood victims have been found floating down a river that enters its territory from the North. This latest turmoil has prompted the two countries to postpone a summit meeting they were planning later this month.

This is ominous news. In 1995 similar flooding, and the related destruction of farmland, prompted a famine that may have claimed as many as 2 million lives. The international aid agencies have been hurrying to provide relief. Unusually, this time around the North didn't hesitate to ask for help, which it did almost immediately. So maybe Kim Jong Il should get some credit for that, at least.

Or maybe not. For one sad fact that's gone largely unreported during this latest tragedy is that these disasters aren't really so natural. When horrors of this kind occur, North Korea's government (and many of its well-wishers around the world) invariably argue that it's just the luck of the draw. There's virtually no arable land in their country because it's so mountainous, they say, and that's why they're so vulnerable to flooding when it washes over their preciously scarce farmland. And that same lack of good fields, they insist, explains why they have such a hard time keeping themselves fed. (During my own recent visit to the North this was one of the primary reasons my government minders gave me when asked to explain their country's economic difficulties.) And then there are the unpredictable, surging tides of the shallow coastal seas. In other words, nature simply gave the Northerners a raw deal.

Funny thing, though - what about Switzerland? I don't hear the Swiss complaining about how mountainous their landscape is. Perhaps that's because they have a functioning market economy that enables them to grow high-end agricultural products on small patches of land for nice profits while doing other kinds of work that allow them to import the basic foodstuffs it wouldn't make sense for them to grow at home. Okay, so maybe that's a bit unfair. North Koreans might respond that that's the developed West, while they're still part of developing Asia. But then I can't recall the last time I heard South Koreans worrying about tides or rainstorms wiping out their fields and factories. For some reason South Korea just doesn't seem to have the same bad luck that the North does.

So is it really just a matter of misfortune? I wonder. Three years ago a United Nations report on North Korea's environment offered a sobering assessment. The report, though cautiously phrased, pointed out that many of North Korea's problems were due to its government's actions. "Major crop yields fell by almost two thirds during the 1990s due to land degradation caused by loss of forest, droughts, floods and tidal waves, acidification due to over-use of chemicals, as well as shortages of fertiliser, farm machinery and oil." (Note that three of the five problems named are directly the result of policy, not nature.) Elsewhere the report notes almost incidentally that one major reason for rampant deforestation over the course of the previous decade was "a doubling of firewood consumption." In other words, as the North's centrally planned (and therefore nightmarishly mismanaged) economy went into a tailspin, many North Koreans had to forage for wood to heat their own houses, thereby denuding the hillsides. That, in turn, leads to erosion and further loss of topsoil. It's a classic example of how bad policy can make natural tragedies - like heavy rainstorms - even worse.

All the indications are that North Korea is an ecological basket case. Most communist governments tend to be. Central planners tend to focus on forcing economic development no matter what the cost - since it's political priorities, and not costs, that matter. According to North Korea-watcher Paul French, North Korean waterways are heavily polluted - including the Taedong River, still Pyongyang's main source of drinking water. He writes that environmental watchdogs in the South estimate that North Korea pumps sulfides into the air in quantities ten times as high as those produced south of the border - even though the North's economy is at a virtual standstill.

And, as he also notes, analysts suspect that many of the grandiose tidal dams and barrages that the regime has trumpeted as "triumphs of socialist construction" over the years may end up encouraging more flooding than they prevent, since they often destroy the natural tidal flats that are a crucial part of coastal ecosystems. During my trip to the North I visited the West Sea Barrage, a huge estuarial dam that's often proudly shown off to visiting foreigners. None of the North Koreans who were boasting about its achievements seemed worried about the possible effects that ecological tampering on this scale might have on a complex and volatile coastal environment.

To be sure, South Korea has ecological problems of its own. It could hardly be otherwise, considering its stunning economic growth over  the past forty years. But it also has institutions that help to keep the damage in check. For one thing, it has a market economy, which promotes accountability and efficient use of resources (especially when the market is properly regulated). And for another it has an extremely lively sphere of public opinion, including both the media and grassroots environmental groups that can focus attention on misdeeds. North Koreans could probably do with a bit more of both. One can only pray that they do before the next famine sets in. I can't say I'm optimistic.