What kind of land violation will not be able to restore the original state?

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment is soliciting comments on the draft decision regulating cases of infeasibility and the level of restoration of the original state of land in Hai Duong province as prescribed in Clause 5, Article 14 of Decree 123/2024/ND-CP dated October 4, 2024 of the Government regulating administrative sanctions for violations in the field of land.

This Decision does not apply to cases of filling irrigation lakes, converting crop and livestock structures on rice-growing land to rice-growing combined with aquaculture, constructing works directly serving agricultural production on rice-growing land, converting agricultural land into terraced fields and other forms of land conversion as prescribed by law.

The draft stipulates two cases where it is not feasible in the field to restore the original condition of the land before the violation. That is, the degradation of land quality (loss or reduction of thickness, change of the topsoil layer of agricultural land with materials with different compositions from the type of land in use; causing discoloring, erosion, and leaching of agricultural land) leading to the loss of the ability to use the land for the determined purpose.

The second case is to deform the terrain (change the slope, land surface elevation; level the land with specialized water surface) which leads to the loss of the ability to use the land for the determined purpose.

Depending on each case of violation, the person with the authority to handle administrative violations shall apply one or several measures to restore the original state of the land before the violation to ensure the ability to use the land for the determined purpose. Specifically, forcing the dismantling, demolition, and movement of materials that the law stipulates are not allowed to exist outside the violated land area; requiring this to minimize digging beyond the topsoil layer to maintain the properties and stability of the soil structure. Forcing leveling, filling, digging to lower the ground level or other solutions to have the same height, depth, and slope as the original of the violated land area; requiring
This requires the use of the original soil or equivalent material to ensure the ability to use the land for the determined purpose. It is required to restore the topsoil layer to a thickness, composition, and properties equivalent to the topsoil layer before the violation.

In case the original land area has measures to prevent erosion, landslides, irrigation systems, and fire barriers, when restoring the original state, these requirements must be ensured.

In case the original land area has plants, crops, and constructions
Construction on land or other materials that must be restored to their original state shall be carried out in accordance with the provisions of specialized laws for such materials.