Forestry Law of the People's Republic of China (2019).

This Law is enacted for the purposes of implementing the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, protecting, cultivating, and reasonably utilizing forest resources, accelerating land greening, protecting forest ecological security, building ecological civilization, and achieving the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature. It consists of 9 chapters: I. General Provisions; II. Forest Ownership and Rights; III. Development Plans; IV. Forest Protection; V. Afforestation and Greening; VI. Operations and Management; VII. Supervision and Inspection; VIII. Legal Liability ; IX. Supplemental Provisions.
In accordance with the needs of ecological protection, the State designates the forest lands with important ecological location or fragile ecological conditions and the forest lands on which the main purpose is to give full play to ecological benefits as public welfare forests. The forest lands not designated as public welfare forest and the forests on the forest lands belong to commercial forest.
Forest resources belong to state ownership, excluding those belonging to collective ownership specified in the law. The ownership or right to use of the forest lands and the forest and woods on the forest lands shall be registered by the real estate registration authority in a unified way and the certificate shall be issued accordingly. The state-owned forest lands and the forest and woods on the forest lands may be designated for use by forestry operators in accordance with law. Disputes arising between units over timber and forest land ownership and the right of use shall be handled by people's governments at or above the county level according to law. Any felling of woods of forest lands should apply for a felling permit and the felling must be carried out pursuant to the provisions of the permit.
The state shall adopt the measures to protect forest resources, e.g. quotas shall be imposed on forest felling and encourage forest planting; key forest regions shall enjoy the transfer payment and other policies of key ecological functional regions of the State; a scheme of compensation for forest ecological benefits shall be established.
The Law further makes provisions, inter alia, for prevention of forest fires and prevention and control of plant diseases and insect pests in the forests; delimitation of nature reserves; serious protection for rare and precious trees outside nature reserves and plant resources with special value in forest regions; restriction on hunting of wild animals in the forest areas; etc.