The defendant’s (Shen Xiang’s) Farming Wood Company hired a construction team to use excavation machinery to strip the surface vegetation of forest land in a village in Tongren City, Guizhou Province, such as Ma'anshan, on the pretext of constructing planting and breeding farms, without going through forest land use permit procedures, resulting in the destruction of the surface vegetation and the exposure of rocks.
The Forestry Bureau was transferred to the Wanshan Branch of the Tongren Municipal Public Security Bureau on suspicion of the above-mentioned acts constituting illegal occupation of agricultural land, but the public security organs filed a case for investigation and then withdrew it. The Forestry Bureau then made an administrative penalty decision against Shen Xiang and the Farming Wood Company: ordering the restoration of the original state of affairs within a certain period of time, but the penalties were not fulfilled. The Wanshan Branch of the Tongren Municipal Public Security Bureau refiled the case for investigation. The following day, the Forestry Bureau revoked the above administrative penalty decision.
The Primary People's Court of Wanshan District of Tongren City found the defendant Shen Xiang guilty of illegally occupying agricultural land and sentenced him to two years' imprisonment and a fine. After the judgment came into effect, the People's Procuratorate of Wanshan District of Tongren City issued a procuratorial proposal to the Forestry Bureau, suggesting that it should perform its duty of supervising the protection of forest resources in accordance with the law, and ordered Shen Xiang to restore the original state of affairs for a limited period of time, and impose a fine. The Forestry Bureau replied that because Shen Xiang was serving a prison sentence, the Farming Wood Company closed down, and personnel were dissolved, the afforestation was unable to be implemented. The Forestry Bureau intended to partially reforest the land, conducting reforestation in other places to compensate for lands that are difficult to reforest; according to the principle of ne bis in dem, there is no further penalty.
The procuratorate filed an administrative public interest lawsuit on the grounds that the Forestry Bureau had neither imposed an administrative penalty on Shen Xiang, nor taken effective measures to replant and restore the greenery, and had not fulfilled its duty to supervise the restoration. It requested that the Forestry Bureau be recognized as having failed to fulfil its supervisory duties and ordered to fulfil its duty to supervise environmental protection.
The Primary People's Court of Bozhou District of Zunyi City, Guizhou Province made the administrative judgment, ordering the defendant, the Forestry Bureau to perform supervision and management of statutory duties on Shen Xiang in the name of the Farming Wood Company to restore and replant on the destroyed land, and a deadline was set for the completion of the re-greening works for acceptance.