A long-term mechanism for forest land protection and management urgently needs to be established
On January 9, the State Forestry Administration reported the results of the 2014 national forest land management inspection. The results showed that various types of illegal and irregular forest land occupation projects increased by 7.1% compared with 2013. Liu Dongsheng, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, said in response that forest land protection and management should not treat the symptoms rather than the root cause, but should establish a long-term mechanism to fundamentally reduce and eliminate the occurrence of illegal occupation.
Liu Dongsheng introduced that in last year's national forest land management inspection, among the 12,839 suspected forest land occupation patches interpreted from remote sensing images, 1,620 patches were spot-checked, and 316 cases of illegal and irregular forest land occupation were found, covering an area of 1,256.3 hectares; 9,489 patches were transferred to local governments for self-inspection, and 653 cases of various types of illegal and irregular forest land occupation were found, covering an area of 2,209.1 hectares.
"According to the analysis of the inspection results, illegal and irregular forest land occupation projects are mainly concentrated in four aspects: land consolidation destroying forest land area; some localities giving the "green light" to industrial parks and illegally occupying forest land at will; quarrying, mining and various types of commercial construction encroaching on forest land repeatedly despite prohibitions; and arbitrarily adjusting forest land protection and utilization plans, affecting the normal order of forest land management." said Hao Yanxiang, director of the Forest Resources Management Department of the State Forestry Administration.
In addition, the inspection also found that law enforcement and supervision links are weak in some places. For example, in some places the forestry authorities have ineffective supervision and weak law enforcement, substituting fines for approval and fines for criminal punishment, and the intensity of accountability and crackdown is insufficient. In some places, the forestry authorities handled review procedures in violation of regulations without investigating and punishing illegal and irregular forest land occupation projects, which encouraged occupation before approval. In individual places, there were also cases of untrue self-inspection reports.
Liu Dongsheng said that the State Forestry Administration decided to list key cases for supervision, and the handling of the problems mainly involves two aspects: first, handling the people involved, and second, recovering the lost forest land. "For government violations of the law and violations by enterprise legal persons, the local responsible persons must be held accountable for Party discipline, administrative discipline and legal responsibility, and the directly responsible persons must be held legally responsible according to law. For cases of serious illegal occupation of forest land, measures such as on-site supervision, media exposure, interviews and administrative regulation will be adopted. For counties with serious forest land management problems, before rectification is completed, the qualification of the province where they are located to use the national reserve quota for occupation and expropriation of forest land shall be cancelled, and the review and approval of occupation and expropriation of forest land projects in the city where they are located shall be suspended."
In recent years, illegal occupation of forest land has not only continued but also shown an increasing trend. Liu Dongsheng believes: "In addition to strict crackdowns, it is even more necessary to study and establish a long-term mechanism for forest land protection and management. First, the authority of forest land protection and utilization plans must be taken seriously, and the red lines already set for the protection of forest land and forests must be resolutely implemented and observed; second, the forestry departments must, together with relevant departments such as organization and personnel, discipline inspection and supervision, explore and establish an assessment and evaluation system and an accountability system for governments; third, the capacity building of forestry departments' forest land law enforcement teams must be strengthened; finally, information channels for forest land cases and forest land protection and management must be opened up, and a form of supervision combining functional supervision and social supervision must be established, especially media exposure and online platforms, which can become important sources for strengthening forest land management and opening up information channels in the future."