Arbitrarily leveling forest land
Recently, Lang Chanh Forestry Company (Lang Chanh District, Thanh Hoa Province) has brought excavators to the production forest area (in Tiu Quarter, Lang Chanh Town) to dig and level with a total area of over 1ha. It is worth mentioning that this activity has not been licensed by the competent authority.
According to the inspection results of the People's Committee of Lang Chanh town and the Forest Protection Department of Lang Chanh district, from the end of December 2024 to mid-January 2025, Lang Chanh Forestry Company arbitrarily built a gate, erected a fence made of concrete and barbed wire, and leveled and lowered the elevation to convert 1.4 hectares of production forest land in sub-zone 420, compartment 4, lot 5 (according to the map of forestry land allocation) to create a garden for planting.
After receiving the report, based on current regulations, the Chairman of Lang Chanh District People's Committee requested Lang Chanh Forestry Company to immediately stop all activities of leveling forest land in the above area, not to build illegal camps and fully carry out related procedures before implementing the nursery.
Explaining the above incident, Mr. Le Minh Cuong - Director of Lang Chanh Forestry Company - said that the unit was previously under Vietnam Paper Corporation. In 2017, the company was transferred to the Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee for management. However, for many years, the restructuring and arrangement has not been completed. Every year, the company does not have its production plan approved by competent authorities, does not receive capital, so it faces many difficulties in operations.
At the end of 2024, the company held a meeting and agreed to build a seedling garden to create more jobs for staff and employees. In fact, when doing it, no functional unit approved the plan, but the company implemented it itself. In terms of State management and land management, it is true that the necessary procedures have not been fully implemented" - Mr. Cuong admitted.
According to Mr. Cuong, to fix the above problem, the company will replant forests (glue trees) on the entire area previously leveled. This is also the only remedy, because it is not possible to complete the procedures for growing the nursery garden, because the company's stamp and tax code are currently all under the Vietnam Paper Corporation. Meanwhile, the company's management unit is the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province, so no matter how much effort is made, it is not approved by any unit.
Fine 150 million VND
It is known that after the above incident, the People's Committee of Lang Chanh district issued a decision to administratively sanction this company.
The decision also clearly stated that the company had deformed the terrain, changed the slope of the surface, lowered the ground surface, with an area of 0.82ha; excavated part of the land area at lot 5, compartment 4, sub-zone 420 (according to the land management and use map of Lang Chanh Forestry Company) into two levels, with the highest excavation point being 2.5m, the lowest excavation point being 0.5m compared to the original ground surface.
For the above violation, the People's Committee of Lang Chanh district decided to fine Lang Chanh Forestry Company 150 million VND. Along with that, the company was forced to restore the original state of the land before the violation, and at the same time paid the cost of measuring and determining the area of the violation to the Branch of the Land Registration Office of Lang Chanh District, with an amount of more than 2.7 million VND. Within 30 days from the date of the penalty decision, Lang Chanh Forestry Company must have completed the remedial measures.
