First EPIL case after COP15 in the Intermediate People’s Court of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province
2021/10/26 9:58:00 本站

At 8:30 a.m. on October 20, 2021, the Intermediate People's Court of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, reopened the case of CBCGDFv.s. Maidu County Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau and Yunnan Construction No. 11 Construction Co. The trial was reopened. This is the first case of biodiversity protection public interest litigation in Yunnan Province after the conclusion of COP15 this year.

From October 11 to 15, 2021, the 2020 UN Conference on Biodiversity was held in Kunming. The conference also adopted the "Kunming Declaration". During the conference, CBCGDF Media was exclusively authorized by the CBD Secretariat to broadcast the 5-day conference program, which was very effective and made biodiversity a hot topic for public viewing.

After the closing of the conference, an environment public interest litigation case on biodiversity protection filed by CBCGDF was heard in Dali Central Court in Yunnan Province.

In 2015, the people's government of Maidu County, Dali Prefecture, prepared to build the Maidu County  - Yin Street Town household waste treatment project in Tho Dong Village, Tho Li Town, which is located in the "killer turnip". The construction without obtaining construction land and forest land approval procedures. Because the construction of the garbage dump is a polluting project, and the relevant units did not obtain the villagers' consent before construction. Also did not acquire the villagers' collective forest land according to the law, the local people strongly opposed during the construction process, and eventually the project was withdrawn due to incomplete procedures, illegal construction, and belonged to the unapproved first construction project. Although the project has been withdrawn and ordered to stop construction, but due to the illegal construction of the project has caused the original more than 100 acres of forest land, arable land has been completely destroyed, the surrounding mountains have been damaged and destroyed, the construction road was abandoned, and a number of slope mitigation steps have been washed away by flooding.

The project site is about two hundred meters away from the reservoir used for irrigation and livestock drinking water source under the mountain - Yangluo Haizi (which flows into the Bixiong River), which flows into the Bixiong River, and the project site is about 800 meters away from the main channel of the Bixiong River in a straight line. What is more worrying is that the destroyed mountains have started to collapse and landslide in some places, and the major risk of sudden mudslide threatens Yanglouhaizi (reservoir) and nearby farmland at any time, and threatens the mother river of Maidu County, the Bixiong River, just a few hundred meters away. -Bixiong River, especially posing a great threat to the lives and properties of nearby villagers.?The project site has historically been an area prone to natural disasters and frequent mudslides, and the damage to the ecology without timely restoration may bring greater subsequent ecological harm, greater damage to the environmental interests of the public, and greater threat to other legitimate interests of the public.

For this reason, CBCGDF, as an environmental protection public interest organization, filed an environmental infringement public interest lawsuit with Maidu County Housing and Urban Development Bureau and Yunnan Construction 11th Construction Company as defendants to the Dali Prefecture Intermediate People's Court in December 2018, requesting the above defendants to repair the damaged ecological environment. the Intermediate People's Court of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Provinceheard that although the construction of the project changed the original landform by more than 60 mu , the construction of the project in question had a very limited impact on the environment and could be restored mainly through natural restoration. On October 9, 2019, a verdict was rendered rejecting theCBCGDF's request for a lawsuit. CBCGDF appealed the verdict to the Intermediate People's Court of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, which was heard  and ruled on October 27, 2020: the first instance verdict was reversed and remanded to the Dali Intermediate Court for retrial. The Dali Central Court decided to reopen the case on October 20, 2021 at 8:30 a.m. after the closing of the COP15 in Kunming. As of the investigation of the site involved in the case before the trial, the environment damaged by the project involved in the case is still exposed with soil and rocks, gullies and ravines, and even the occurrence of mudslides is more serious. The video footage taken at the site was provided to the court to prove that the ecological environment destroyed by the project in question could not be restored to its original state through natural restoration after six years.

Before Construction

After Construction

Villagers Protecting the Land





Original Chinese article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/A1CmrnC59IjeYI9Vv3sThA

Translator/Daisy

Contribution

https://www.paypal.me/CBCGDFChina

http://www.cbcgdf.org/English/ConfirmDonaTion/0.html