On March 6, 2024, the Government issued Decree 27/2024/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 156/2018/ND-CP dated November 16, 2018 of the Government amended certain articles of the Law on Forestry (“Decree 27”). Decree 27 supplements regulations related to temporary use of forests.
Temporary use of forest is a completely new regulation. Decree 27 allows the use of forests to carry out temporary works to construct electrical network projects for socio-economic development for national and public benefits, but does not change the purpose of using forests to other purposes.
Accordingly, investors in power network projects must develop and have approved a temporary method of using the forest before officially using the forest.
1. Conditions for approval of temporary forest use methods
Decree 27 strictly regulates the conditions that a temporary forest use plan must meet to be approved:
- Having an electricity network project for socio-economic development for national and public benefits is provided with the authority to decide on the investor's account according to regulations;
- Reasonable projects that have the goal of converting to other forest uses and temporarily using forest purposes must decide on the target account to use other forest purposes;
- Temporary use of forests is only allowed in cases where the project is required to use a forest area so that other areas cannot be allocated;
- Temporarily used areas must be investigated and evaluated to assess the current status, storage capacity, and impact of temporary forest use on the forest ecosystem;
- The temporary use of the forest must not exceed the project implementation period;
- Do not temporarily use forests in strictly protected areas of forest specialties, forest areas containing endangered and rare forest plant species;
- Reforestation is carried out during the latest local reforestation season but no later than 12 months from the end of the temporary forest use period.
In addition, temporary use of forests is also limited and strictly managed in terms of forest type, area, and temporary use time.
2. Approval and supervision of implementation of the temporary forest use plan
Decree 27 stipulates that the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee decides to approve the temporary plan to use forests to carry out temporary works at all levels to construct electricity network projects for socio-economic development for convenience.
In the case of temporary forest accumulation for use under the management of forest owners who are units under ministries and branches, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee shall send a document to collect opinions from the managing ministry and branch and direct approved when receiving the consent of the specialized management ministry.
The Provincial People's Committee must assume responsibility for the content of the decision approving the temporary forest use plan and inspect and supervise the implementation of the plan, and at the same time commit to responsibility if violations occur.
Decree 27 takes effect from June 3, 2024.
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