Provincial People's Councils will decide on the conversion of natural forest use purposes.

Comrade Lo Thi Luyen, Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation, spoke at the discussion session.

One content that delegate Lo Thi Luyen as well as many other National Assembly deputies participating in previous sessions has been listened to and accepted by the National Assembly and the Government is the regulation on the authority to change the purpose of using protective forest land, special-use forest land, and production forest land that are natural forests.

"The Draft Law has stipulated in the direction of decentralizing authority to localities; the Provincial People's Council will decide on changing the purpose of use in accordance with the approved land use planning and plan" - delegate Lo Thi Luyen informed.

Delegates proposed to maintain the regulation to abolish Clause 2, Article 14 of the Forestry Law as the draft submitted by the Government at the 5th session of the 15th National Assembly. If so, it will help to remove difficulties for localities in procedures for converting forest use purposes when implementing projects using forest land, contributing to speeding up the disbursement of public investment capital, promoting socio -economic development.

Commenting on some specific contents, delegate Lo Thi Luyen said that Clause 26, Article 3 of the Draft Law stipulates that “Land destruction is an act of deforming terrain, reducing soil quality, polluting soil, causing loss or reduction of the ability to use land for the determined purpose”. This content remains the same as the provisions of the current Land Law.

According to the delegate, recently, in some provinces, many people, for the sake of immediate profit, have used electricity to stimulate earthworms, catch and destroy them and sell them across the border, causing a decline in the ecosystem and microorganisms in the soil, reducing soil quality, destroying the ecological environment of the soil, causing resentment among the people. Some provinces have applied the act of destroying soil to punish, but this regulation has not ensured consistency, so it is necessary to consolidate a clearer legal basis as a basis for state management agencies to prevent and handle the above acts.

Regarding consultation on land use planning and plans, delegates proposed to regulate in the following direction: Only conduct public consultation to all organizations, communities, and individuals in the case of consultation on land use planning; and land use planning only conduct consultation with relevant departments, offices, and branches .

Explaining the above proposal, the delegate said that land use planning is carried out based on the land use needs in the planning year of the sector, field of all levels, of registered organizations, households and individuals. The implementation of land use planning is only carried out within a period of 01 year, the time for land use planning is short with many tasks, if the procedure of collecting opinions from the community and individuals is carried out, it will not ensure the progress of approving the land use plan before December 31 every year.

Regarding land requisition, the Draft Law stipulates that “The Minister of National Defense, the Minister of Public Security , the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Industry and Trade, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, the Minister of Finance, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, the Chairman of the District People's Committee have the authority to decide on land requisition and decide on land requisition extension. The person with the authority to requisition land may not delegate the authority to another person.”

Delegate Lo Thi Luyen informed that, comparing with the provisions on decentralization and authorization in Clause 1, Article 13, Article 14 of the Law on Organization of Local Government 2015, decentralization is the authority of state agencies to state agencies; individuals do not have the authority to decentralize as defined in the draft law. Therefore, the delegate suggested studying and amending this content to "A person with the authority to requisition land may not authorize others" to ensure accuracy in the legal system.

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