The problem of land consolidation destroying forest land is serious and requires stronger crackdown efforts
Land consolidation is seriously destroying forest land, and some places are giving the green light to industrial parks illegally occupying forest land. It is necessary to increase the weight of ecological protection in the performance assessment of officials, and establish an accountability system involving ecological issues
In recent times, in some places, illegal occupation of forest land and destruction of forest resources have occurred from time to time and have been repeatedly prohibited without success. In 2014, the State Forestry Administration carried out a nationwide inspection of forest land management and found that various types of illegal and non-compliant forest land occupation projects increased by 7.1% compared with the previous year. In order to further standardize forest land management, the State Forestry Administration recently carried out a two-month special action to investigate forest land, and has so far cleared and investigated a total of 17,270 cases of illegal occupation of forest land, with an illegal and non-compliant area of 31,276 hectares.
Land consolidation destroys a large area of forest land, causing severe regional ecological damage
According to Liu Dongsheng, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, in 2014, the State Forestry Administration used a combination of satellite remote sensing images and on-site verification to inspect the forest land management situation in 149 counties. The results showed that the phenomenon of illegal occupation of forest land in some places is still relatively prominent.
Land consolidation destroys a large area of forest land, causing severe regional ecological damage. A special inspection by the State Forestry Administration showed that in order to ease the contradiction between land supply and demand and achieve “occupation-compensation balance” of cultivated land across the province, Zhejiang encourages land consolidation and reclamation of cultivated land, and land use quotas can be adjusted across regions. Xianju County and Longquan City are relatively underdeveloped areas in Zhejiang, with urgent development needs and relatively high enthusiasm and large areas for reclaiming cultivated land. At the same time, the two places have little cultivated land, few low hills and gentle slopes, and most of these are forest land, thus creating the scene of “fields lying idle at the foot of the mountain while trees are being cut busily on the mountain.” The special inspection found that from 2009 to 2014, the two places completed a land consolidation area of 2,427.9 hectares, of which 2,021.8 hectares involved forest land; of the 22 projects spot-checked and verified, the actual construction area was 315.3 hectares, of which forest land area was 290.5 hectares, accounting for 92.1%.
Hao Yanxiang, director of the Forest Resources Management Department of the State Forestry Administration, introduced that the problem of destroying forest land resources in land consolidation has a long history, and the pattern of interests behind it is very complex. In some places, it has already formed a considerable scale and has posed a serious threat to the protection and management of forest land. The 2014 forest land management inspection took land consolidation as a key focus and adopted three forms: national inspection, local self-inspection, and special investigation. In 15 counties in 6 provinces, a total of 71 land consolidation and development projects were found to occupy 1,586.4 hectares of forest land.
At the same time, some places give the green light to industrial parks, illegally occupy forest land, and the occupation of forest land by quarrying, mining, and various types of commercial construction has been repeatedly prohibited without success. Spot checks found 105 illegal exploration and mining projects, with an area of 210.5 hectares, accounting for 39.6% of the total number of illegal construction projects spot-checked and 29.2% of the area. In Jungar Banner of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, forest land management is chaotic, and large amounts of forest land are illegally and non-compliantly occupied for coal mining. In some places, forest land protection and utilization plans are arbitrarily adjusted for land consolidation and the construction of industrial parks, seriously affecting the normal order of forest land management.
Increase crackdown efforts and curb forest destruction and land occupation from the source
As for illegal occupation of forest land, China long ago explicitly prohibited it, and relevant departments have also been continuously increasing crackdown efforts. Why is it still repeatedly prohibited without success? Zhao Shucong, director of the State Forestry Administration, believes that the key is to use institutions to protect the ecological environment, increase the weight of ecological protection in the performance assessment of officials, establish an accountability system involving ecological issues, improve laws and regulations, and curb such illegal and non-compliant phenomena from the source.
“The inspection also found that in some places the law enforcement and supervision links are weak.” Liu Dongsheng said that in some places the forestry authorities have ineffective supervision and weak law enforcement, substituting fines for approval and fines for criminal punishment, and accountability and crackdown efforts are insufficient; in some places, forestry authorities, without investigating and handling or without adequately investigating and handling illegal and non-compliant forest land occupation projects, illegally processed review (approval) procedures retroactively, which encouraged occupation before approval; in a few places, forestry authorities divided matters into parts to evade approval and approved in violation of regulations; and in a few places, self-inspection reports were untrue.