Property developer Luo Zhongfu will have to serve a 101/2-year jail sentence for illegally occupying forest land after a court in the southwestern province of Guizhou upheld the sentence yesterday.
The Guiyang Intermediate People's Court handed down the judgment. Luo was first sentenced last month, and the courts had also sentenced a business partner and Luo's wife to shorter terms.
They were tried under stricter environmental laws, which came into effect from 1997 aiming to protect natural resources.
Luo's company, Beijing Fuhai Fuyingshi New Materials Technology Development, and another company used fraud to gain control of a forested area on the outskirts of Guiyang, saying it would develop the land for tourism, Xinhua reported.
Instead, the project aimed to construct villas. The project had illegally occupied 267 hectares and caused deforestation on 658 hectares, the court found. Prosecutors calculated that the trees cut down as a result of the deforestation amounted to 775 cubic metres of timber.
According to Xinhua, the project had not received approval by the government, but developers cleared the forested land anyway.
The courts sentenced a business partner, former Guizhou Forestry Science Institute headYu Shuming, to eight years in jail and Yang Xiurong, Luo's wife, to two years in jail for illegally occupying land and obstructing justice. Yang also headed a commercial association representing Guizhou businessmen in Macau.
