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BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The State Forestry Administration(SFA) released a blacklist of 10 major cases of forest destruction since 2003 on Wednesday, unveiling a national campaign to crack down on deforestation.
The 75-day-long campaign, which is organized jointly by the SFA and
the Ministry of Public Security, is designed to "clean up" all the major cases
of deforestation, said Lei Jiafu, SFA's deputy director general.
The 10 violators are accused of stealing forestland to build
railways, highways, reservoirs and mines or poaching endangered wildlife. The
SFA has set up special work teams to promote and supervise the investigation and
handling of the cases, said Lei.
"The results will be released in June," he said, adding that
governmental efforts to curb illegal logging have shifted from individual
violators to violations by businesses and the government.
During the period from 1999 to 2003, more than 10 million hectares of
forestland were misused and the annual illegally-logged timber volume exceeded
75 million cubic meters, SFA statistics show.
Local governments' greed and ineffective supervision of the forestry
department were blamed as the major reasons for increasing deforestation
violations in recent years.
In addition, an imprecise legal system of forest resources management
and protection provides an opportunity for illegal activities, said Wang
Zhuxiong, deputy director of the SFA's Forest Resources Management Department.
To tackle the problem, SFA has started to work out a special layout
on forest management and protection to avoid the misuse of forests.
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