E Mulch Land Clearing
E Mulch Land Clearing.

By: E-Mulch

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E Mulch Land Clearing - Video

Vegetation being dumped in one asset-protection zone. Photo: Stop the Chop

The Blue Mountains City Council has joined resident groups in Sydney to renew calls for the tightening of land-clearing laws that have enabled many home owners to clear nearby bushland without a permit.

The so-called 10/50 clearing code allows people living in bushfire-prone areas to fell trees within 10 metres of any house and clear other vegetation out to 50 metres to reduce fire hazards.

Bending to a public outcry that many trees were being cut merely to improve views or boost a property's re-sale value, the government in November narrowed the areas covered by the code and asked the Rural Fire Service to review the policy.

Clearing trees: eight large trees cut in East Killara. Photo: Stop the Chop

However, the Blue Mountains City Council this week voiced its concerns again, with the council members unanimously passing a "mayoral minute" that noted the impacts of the code were cumulative but "not readily measurable" since residents aren't required to give notice of their clearing.

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"This was meant to be about bushfire protection," mayor Mark Greenhill said. "It was not meant to be a new way of land-clearing with no regulation around it."

The relaxing of land-clearing laws was prompted by the 2013 bushfires, which destroyed close to 200 homes in the Blue Mountains.

Vegetation being dumped in bushland. Photo: Stop the Chop

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Blue Mountains council: call for 10/50 tree-clearing law to be tightened

While the new land acquisition law and ordinance are agitating the nation, the Supreme Court has been quietly clearing hundreds of cases relating to the issue in the past three months. The bench of the Chief Justice brought the records from the storeroom and disposed of them, as if to clear the way for litigation under the new law.

There are lessons for the future from these dog-eared files. Some of the acquisitions were two decades old, like Union of India vs Ram Lal (1989) or Patel Punajbhai vs N. Gujarat University (1987). The landowners trudge a long way to reach the apex court. They move the 'reference court' to begin with, then the high court and lastly, the Supreme Court. There are reviews in between and at the end. The longest pause is at the high court level, sometimes running to a decade. The Supreme Court takes five years on an average.

By the time the appeals reach the Supreme Court, some landowners might have bequeathed their cases to their heirs. It shows in the title of cases such as, Land Acquisition Officer vs Krishnayya (DEAD), which was lying in the Supreme Court since 2007. New acquisitions could also be caught in such debilitating litigation. The government, therefore, must realise the perils of neglecting legal infrastructure and underestimating the shrewdness of the legal profession.

Sitting through the hearings in the land acquisition appeals revealed the soft underbelly of the law. The rate of compensation was one of the bitter points of contention. The collector's estimate is invariably upset by the high courts, which hike the compensation. After a decade or so, the Supreme Court awards a still higher package, often as bequest to the legal representatives.

Assessment of the value is bedevilled by numerous vague norms. The size of the plot, its nearness to the developed areas, the rate at which the adjacent lands were sold to private parties, whether arid or fertile, the future value after development, purpose of the proposed project, the jump in price of land after the acquisition notification - these are only some of the criteria set by the Supreme Court to arrive at the correct amount of compensation. All these are lush ground for litigation, as could be seen in the past weeks in the Supreme Court.

As if these are not enough, the government bungles almost at every point. Notifications are allowed to lapse, the proposed project is confined to the limbo and a fresh notification is issued by a new government, starting a new round of litigation. Politics and vested interests interfere to prolong the harassment of the landowners. Environment impact assessment is a new factor. Often, that objection is bulldozed, as in the case of the new capital for Andhra Pradesh.

Then there are other irritants such as the lack of proper land records, an area neglected by state governments. There is a mind-boggling array of terms used to refer to units of land. In a recent judgment, Doongar Singh vs State of Punjab, the land acquired in 1992 for Guru Nanak thermal plant was measured in nehri, chahi and barani. Then there were gair mumkin lands. Somewhere during the decades of litigation, the measurements turned into kanals and marlas. From Bengal comes terms such as cottahs and chhitacks. The judges have to grapple with such curiosities from all parts of the country.

Those who observed land acquisition litigation would tend to think the new law would not be free from the same treatment at the hands of landowners, unless government action is fair and just - a tall order. The legal challenges could involve issues starting from vague definitions (see how 'public interest' and 'urgency' clauses spawned thousands of petitions), rate of compensation and arbitrariness of the authorities.

The constitutionality of the law itself is waiting to be challenged as soon as it comes into force. Interim orders and injunctions by civil courts could stall projects, unless the legal system itself is helped to deliver speedy justice. If the dysfunctional judicial machinery, long neglected by the government, stands in the way of development, it could only be called comeuppance.

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M J Antony: Spring-cleaning of dusty files

25th March, 2015

By MARUTIN ANSIUNG

KENINGAU: Community leaders in three villages have strongly objected to a land application in Kg Ulu Keningau, Jalan Kimanis from an individual aiming to secure 50 acres in the village.

Native chief representative, Jassin Lumau, Samalang village head, Aliman Nulantan, Keningau village chief, Joanis Doimpin and Ulu Keningau village chief, Petrus Langkihang all expressed their objection to the application on the basis that the area applied for had been settled by local villagers since the 1980s.

The three settlements are Kg Samalang, Kg Keningau and Kg Ulu Keningau.

Aliman said former Senator, Datuk Robert Evans and former Bingkor assemblyman of the Berjaya era, Datuk Ayub Aman were both aware of the existence of the settlements in the 1980s.

They had applied for the land to the Department of Land and Survey in 1976 and again in the 80s but were denied because the Sabah Parks did not permit land in that area to be applied for settlement.

Nevertheless, the villagers decided to settle on the land which they regard as being their ancestral ground. However, a week ago we were shocked when we saw bulldozers had come into the area. When we tried to stop the men from doing clearing work, they told us that the land had been applied for and approved by the Department of Land and Survey, said Aliman.

According to him, the applicant Thien Swee Jin @ Annie Thien under land application 2012131415. He questioned how the application by Thien could have been approved when theirs was rejected twice by the department.

The community leaders therefore urge the government to intervene and resolve the land dispute.

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Community leaders battling prospects of losing their villages

Minecraft KC #39;s 1.8 SURVIVAL W/Caden EP.3: TIMELAPSE OF LAND CLEARING
Hey guys McCity Kane here with a timelapse video. Really hope you guys enjoy and remember to like, comment and subscribe. CHECK OUT THIS AMZING SONG THAT I USED! This girl is amazing so, ...

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Minecraft KC's 1.8 SURVIVAL W/Caden EP.3: TIMELAPSE OF LAND CLEARING - Video

Land clearing stop motion part 1
via YouTube Capture.

By: Bobcats750

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Land clearing stop motion part 1 - Video

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

China Resources Land (1109) says it has set aggressive sales targets even though the property sector will continue to focus on clearing inventory this year amid a supply glut.

The state-backed developer China's ninth-biggest is aiming for 78 billion yuan (HK$97.34 billion) in contract sales, 14 percent higher than last year's 70 billion yuan target, which it missed by 800 million yuan.

"Our sales target is not conservative," managing director and vice chairman Tang Yong said. "Supply is higher than standard level and the market is focusing on clearing inventory."

Despite the slump in the overall market, Shenzhen-based CR Land booked a 25 percent jump in core profit to HK$11.8 billion last year, helped by its focus on high-end projects in top-tier cities. Net profit was flat at HK$14.7 billion.

CR Land's shares rose 3.2 percent to HK$21 before the results were announced. REUTERS

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CR Land aims higher

The SMOG PROBLEM in the North may have eased now, thanks to the summer storms. But that is definitely not an excuse for all sides to stop addressing the issue.

The focus, in particular, should be on locals' participation and corn-farm companies.

Let's look at the corn farms first. Why? Because research shows corn farmers usually burn old plants and weeds to clear their land during the first quarter of the year ahead of the farming season. Their activities in effect cause hot spots that pollute the air.

With more than 5 million of the country's 7 million rai (1.12 million hectares) of corn farms concentrated in its North, northern provinces have inevitably been struggling with the smog problem around February and March every year since 2007.

Research also shows the more expansive corn farms become, the worse the air pollution is.

Jongklai Worapongsathorn, director of Chiang Mai's natural resources and environment office, said yesterday that forest fires played a very minor role in the smog problem.

"Most hotspots come from corn farms," he said.

Assistant Professor Suthinee Dontree, a lecturer at Chiang Mai University, said satellite images from 2007, 2010 and 2011 showed that hotspots covered more than 40 per cent of Chiang Mai's Mae Chaem, Hot, Chiang Dao, Omkoi, Chom Thong, Doi Tao, Fang, Chaiya Prakan and Mae Ai districts during the smog season.

Besides the many corn farms in the North, there are expansive farmlands in neighbouring Myanmar.

"Corn farms in Thailand's upper North, Myanmar and Laos must have spread over 10 million rai of land," she said.

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Private sector must help fight northern Thailand smog

By Kaitlin McCallum kmccallum@registercitizen.com

Willis thought she had created a solution for the problem of clear-cutting or encroachment on state, town or protected land when her bill, which became Public Act No. 06-89, passed in 2006.

But then BNE Energy, an energy company looking to build wind turbines on top of Canaan Mountain, cut down nearly 3 acres of heritage trees in the Housatonic State Forest instead of nearby private land. And the act, which offers penalties including fines up to five times the reasonable value of the trees or restoration of the land to its prior condition, was ignored.

Instead of referring the issue to the states attorney general for prosecution, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Daniel Esty signed a consent order allowing the company to escape the conflict with a $10,000 fine and five years of monitoring for invasive species.

The slap-on-the-wrist penalty BNE received did not fulfill what Rep. Willis and Sen. Richard Blumenthal had intended when the original bill was proposed.

When I first did the legislation on encroachment on state or preserved land, the purpose was to ensure that land was restored if damages were done - they could get the property back to where it once was and the penalties were up to five times the value of the trees, so they were pretty stiff, Willis explained. But the problem was the case of Canaan Mountain, which was never referred to the attorney general. DEEP believed that they had the ability to do a consent decree so they went ahead and settled for what people feel was a lot less than warranted by the kind of destruction done.

The Berkshire Litchfield Environmental Council has been protecting Canaan Mountain from developers, utility companies and the state since the 1970s, its president Starling Childs said, and when the forest was damaged by BNE, the group took up the fight.

BLEC filed suit against the DEEP commissioner, charging that Esty side-stepped the law in issuing the consent order and that the settlement with BNE should be thrown out. Attorney General George Jepsen adamantly defended the DEEP action and BLEC was denied.

The group filed an appeal in December of 2013.

It has dragged on, Childs said. The court ruled in favor of the attorney generals argument. They narrowly interpreted the statute and the fact that we had brought this action, rather than addressing the environmental crime that had been committed. Continued...

Read more:
Willis Bill Aims to Prevent Repeat of Canaan Mountain Clearing

The focus, in particular, should be on locals' participation and corn-farm companies.

Let's look at the corn farms first. Why? Because research shows corn farmers usually burn old plants and weeds to clear their land during the first quarter of the year ahead of the farming season. Their activities in effect cause hot spots that pollute the air.

With more than 5 million of the country's 7 million rai (1.12 million hectares) of corn farms concentrated in its North, northern provinces have inevitably been struggling with the smog problem around February and March every year since 2007.

Research also shows the more expansive corn farms become, the worse the air pollution is.

Jongklai Worapongsathorn, director of Chiang Mai's natural resources and environment office, said yesterday that forest fires played a very minor role in the smog problem.

"Most hotspots come from corn farms," he said.

Assistant Professor Suthinee Dontree, a lecturer at Chiang Mai University, said satellite images from 2007, 2010 and 2011 showed that hotspots covered more than 40 per cent of Chiang Mai's Mae Chaem, Hot, Chiang Dao, Omkoi, Chom Thong, Doi Tao, Fang, Chaiya Prakan and Mae Ai districts during the smog season.

Besides the many corn farms in the North, there are expansive farmlands in neighbouring Myanmar.

"Corn farms in Thailand's upper North, Myanmar and Laos must have spread over 10 million rai of land," she said.

At the height of the smog crisis this year, Thailand even had to ask for cooperation from Myanmar in helping prevent its people from clearing their farmland with fires.

Read more here:
Private sector must help fight smog blanketing the northern provinces