The Land Use and Soil Protection: Planning and Legal Regulations in Serbia

Land, as one of the basic environmental factors, is under large impact by intensive agricultural production, urbanisation, mining activities, erosion caused by anthropogenic factors, etc., which can easily result in its degradation. The unplanned land use increases the risks of degradation and reduction of the land resource. Chemical pollution, unfavourable physical and mechanical characteristics, disruption and accumulation processes, infrastructural occupancy of land represent only few forms of the land degradation. The largest portion of the land in the Republic of Serbia is covered by forests, and only then agricultural, water and construction land. The land use, management and protection is regulated by legislation and planning documents, which are the object of this paper. In the first part of the document analysis, the focus is on the review of the relevant laws adopted in Serbia, such as the Law on Forests, the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction, the Law on Environmental Protection, the Law on Land Protection, and the Law on Agricultural Land, bearing in mind the fact that the legislation forms a basis for further implementation of the planning management and supervision of the land use of all types and purposes. The other part of the review deals with the planning acts as pioneering documents in the integral overview of space, and/or all the activities in it. To that purpose, several spatial plans for different types of areas and different primary functions of land use have been chosen. In its conclusion, this paper explains the symbiosis of legislation and planning documents, and/or their implementation, as well as the significance of such symbiosis for the land function and its sustainable utilisation in the Republic of Serbia.


INTRODUCTION
Out of the total 88,361 km² of the territory area of the Republic of Serbia, 53.76% or 47,502.173 km² is agricultural land. The major part of it is located in the territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (19.69%,or 17,397.92 km²) and its Pannonian Plain terrain intersected by rivers and canals (Josimović et al.).
In the face of the land resources overload reduction due to the migration of population from rural parts of Serbia, especially in the mountain region (Stojkov, Pantić, 2007), in the past few decades the mankind has been faced with the excessive use of natural resources, causing substantial changes in the quality of the environment. Urban development and the increasing population, causing the ever-growing demand for food, have generated intense Planning and Legal Regulations of land and soil,Bezbradica et al ZEMLJISTE I BILJKA,VOL 68,No 2, Review paper: doi:10.5937/ZemBilj1902051B 52 agricultural production and the growing risk of land degradation processes. Due to these great pressures on natural resources, as well as to deforestation, unplanned use of land etc., the land fund has degraded and reduced. Because of the above-listed negative impacts on land resources, land losses resulting from erosion, both natural and anthropogenic, contribute to the negative trend of decreasing the area of agricultural, forest and water lands. Apart from direct negative impacts on land, such as chemical pollution, unfavourable physical and mechanical characteristics, destruction processes, infrastructural occupancy of land, drainage and pollution of water supply accumulations and electric power production, land as a key resource is also affected by mining activities in large mines in the Republic of Serbia, which intensifies the repurposing of forest and agricultural land into mining land.
The law is a normative act of the state enacted by its legislative authority in line with the prescribed procedure. In the course of producing legal regulations in the Republic of Serbia, they legislature is being harmonised with that of the European Union as a prerequisite for the accession to EU. European regulations are characterized by integrity and/or striving for the implementation of measures and obligations for the sake of realizing previously 53 This paper presents basic provisions of the above-listed legal acts from the aspect of using land categories with the greatest biodiversity valueagricultural and forest land respectively.

METHODOLOGY
This paper represent a review of existing legal documents that are related explicitly or implicitly to the land use and soil protection in Serbia. The review of the legislative framework included not only laws, but also spatial plans because these documents are equally obligatory as ordinary legislative acts. In addition, land use is in the focus of spatial planning, for which spatial plans play the leading role in regulation of not only soil protection but also land and soil use. This paper goes into details regarding the Law on Agricultural Land (2006) (2015).Even though interpretation of the spatial planning practice in land and soil use and protection is mainly interpreted through the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction, the output of this paper is additionally based on series of documents involved in spatial planning practice and specific spatial planning acts such as the Spatial Plan for the Kostolac's Coal Basin Special Purpose Area (2013) or Spatial Plan for the "Prvonek" Storage Basin Special Purpose Area (2017).
The main goal of the paper is to give a comprehensive preview of the contemporary foundation for treatment of land and soil in Serbia.

REVIEW OF LEGISLATIVE ON LAND USE AND PROTECTION IN SERBIA
The primary role of the legal regulations regarding land resources in the Republic of Serbia is arrangement, protection and planned use, land-registry management and supervision of the law implementation. Other legal acts and bylaws are indirectly connected with the implementation of the laws in the fields of forestry, agriculture, environmental protection, water management, spatial and urban planning. Integrity, interconnection and interdependence are the obligation of the legislative authority in charge of enacting laws, as well as of the executive authority in charge of implementing legal regulations.

Law on Forests
The Law on Forests recognizes forests as habitats of various plant and animal species with a multiple functional role: protecting land from erosion, positively affecting the quality of air, water and soil, being used in the wood industry, and being utilised for recreation and tourism purposes. Therefore, forests are recognized as one of the most important resources of the environment.
The catchment area without any protective vegetation cover and with unfavourable terrain and climate characteristics constitutes the basis for the occurrence of intense erosion processes in whose prevention forests play a key role manifested in several stages:  protection from destruction of the land structure due to intense precipitation;  soil binding with the aid of vegetation root systems;  prevention of surface drainage, absorption of precipitation and gradual infiltration;  improvement of mechanical features of soil in forming underground drainage and infiltration.
Forest coverage of the Republic of Serbia is 29.1% (0.7 ha per capita), which is similar to the world average of 30%, but substantially lower than the European average of 46% (Public Utility Enterprise "Srbijašume", 2019). Out of 78 forest species in the territory of the Republic of Serbia, the most common is beech -20.6%, followed by Turkey oak -13.0%, The Law on Forests regulates forest preservation, protection, planning, silviculture, utilization and management of forests and forest lands, the supervision of the implementation of this Law, as well as other issues significant for forests and forest lands. Forest, in terms of the law, includes: land area of more than 500 m 2 covered with forest trees and land covered with minimum 30% of tree crowns, nurseries, protection belts, parks, belts under transmission line corridors (the Republic of Serbia, the Law on Forests).
The Law on Forests (2009) defines forest land as "the land on which a forest is cultivated, the land on which, because of its natural characteristics, it is more rational to grow a forest, as well as the land covered with the features intended for forest and game  any cutting which is not in accordance with the forest management plans;  cutting of protected and strictly protected tree species;  tree girdling; grazing or pasturing cattle, and acorn feeding in forest;  harvesting of other forest products (mushrooms, fruits, medicinal plants, snails etc.);  cutting of seed stands and seed trees, which is not prescribed by forest management plans;  quarrying of stone, gravel, sand, humus, earth and peat, except for the construction of infrastructure for forest management;  unauthorized occupation of forests, destruction or damage to forest plantations, marks, and border signs, and the construction of improvements which are not in the function of forest management;  discharge of garbage and harmful and dangerous substances and waste, as well as forest contamination in any manner.
Vulnerability of forests and forest land has a constantly upward trend, particularly nowadays, due to the increasing population, i.e. the increasing needs for agricultural and construction land. Repurposing forest land into construction land (development of road infrastructure, expansion of settlements, tourism and recreation) and mining land, apart from the illegal cutting, intensifies the processes of the reduction in the forest and land fund and increases the risks of erosion processes. Article 10 of the Law on Forests allows for the repurposing of forests and forest lands only in the following cases: 56  when it is laid down by the regional forest development plan;  if it is required by the public interest laid down by special law or the Government act;  for the construction of the improvements for the protection of citizens and material goods from natural disasters, and for national defence;  in the procedure of redistribution and consolidation of agricultural land and forests;  for the construction of auxiliary buildings or dwelling houses for forest owners on the area of less than 1,000 m 2 ;  for the construction of the facilities for the use of other renewable energy sources of small capacity (small power plants and other similar improvements, in the terms of regulations in the field of energetics) and exploitation of mineral resources, if forest and forest land area for these purposes is below 15 ha.
The change in forest land-use form under Paragraph 1, Items 4) to 6) of this Article, shall be done with the approval from the Ministry.
The request for approval under Paragraph 2 of this Article, for the purpose of preventing fraudulent activities and misuse of forests as a valuable resource, the Law defines the obligation of submitting documentation that includes proof of ownership, i.e. of the right to use forests or forest land subject to approval; forestry inspection records on the existing state regarding the harvesting methods of forests and forest lands subject to approval; proof that the administrative tax is paid; and, in certain cases, project of reinstatement.
Prior to the establishment of the planned land use, the forest and forest land for which land-use change was performed shall be managed by the forest owner, i.e. forest user. At the request of the owner, the land-use form can be changed for the forest land of up to 5,000m 2 owned by the forest owner, which is registered as a forest or forest land in the official records and used for agricultural production.
Penal provisions of the Law on Forests comprise sanctioning measures for management and acting contrary to the provisions of the Law, i.e. fines in the amount from 10,000 to 3,000,000 dinars for physical and legal persons, as well as the confiscation of the products obtained through actions which are not in compliance with the provisions of the Law on Forests.

Law on Agricultural Land
Agricultural land is one of the most important natural resources used for the production of food and/or raw materials for food industry as a direct product of agricultural production. 57 Agricultural land accounts for approximately 53% of the overall territory of the Republic of Serbia, or 0.67 ha per capita. In order to preserve the available agricultural land and create prerequisites for preventing degradation and pollution, it is necessary to achieve sustainable management and utilization of land resources intended for agricultural production.
The Law on Agricultural Land (2006)   in any other cases when public interest has been established based on the law, with the payment of the fee for such repurposing.
In some cases, such as the case described in Paragraph 1 of this Article, it is allowed to use land for a limited period and for an indefinite period of time.
Sanctions for the failure to act in line with the law stipulate fines in the amount from 5,000 to 1,000,000 dinars.

Law on Land Protection
The Penal provisions of the Law stipulate fines in the amount from 5,000 to 3,000,000 dinars.

Law on Environmental Protection
The Law on Environmental Protection indirectly serves to preserve land resources of the Republic of Serbia. Protection and preservation are the key to preventing degradation processes of all environmental factors, with land being among the most important ones.
All users of the environment are responsible for the activities that may lead to the change in the state of environment, which means that they are obliged: According to the Law, Article 22 defines land protection measures, stating that "protection of land space (land) and its sustainable utilization shall be ensured by the measures of systematic monitoring of the quality of land, monitoring the indicators of risk assessment for land degradation, as well as implementing the remediation programs for removing consequences of contamination and degradation of the land space, either natural or man-made. When changing the holder of the right to use land, the land user whose right of use ceases and whose activity affected or may have affected or disturbed natural functions of land, is obliged to produce a report on the state of land.

Law on Spatial Planning and Construction
The Law on Spatial Planning and Construction defines, among other things, the space arrangement and/or conditions and methods of space arrangement and utilization. The When the use of agricultural and forest land is changed to construction land through a planning document, the agency responsible for producing the plan is obliged to deliver a document to the agency responsible for state land surveying affairs and land-registry, containing a list of land-registry plots whose use has been changed, or the description of the limits of the planning document with the list of land-registry plots and the adequate graphic representation, within 15 days from the day of enactment of the planning document.
The agency responsible for state land surveying affairs and land-registry implements the arising changes through a resolution, and enters a record of the obligation of payment of compensation for the change of use of agricultural land into the database of the real estate land-registry which issues the real estate folio, within 15 days from the receipt of the act from Paragraph 1 of this Article.
Prior to the establishment of the planned land use, the agricultural land the purpose of which has been changed through a planning document can be used for agricultural production.
The resolution from Paragraph 2 of this Article is submitted to the land owner, the Ministry responsible for agricultural affairs and the relevant tax authority within 15 days from the issuance of this resolution.
The owner of the land-registry plot for which the use is changed is obliged to pay compensation for the change of use of agricultural land before the issuance of a construction permit, in compliance with the law governing agricultural land or the law governing forest land.

PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION
Planning documentation constitutes an overall set and mutual interaction of interconnected partial factors of inhabitation, economic and social activities and needs. The most important characteristics in the planning process are: integrity, compliance, coordination and determination of obligations and responsibilities in the production and implementation of plans. Therefore, spatial planning comprises the set of indirect and direct measures related to land and its quality improvement (Pantić, 2016). SEIA is an instrument that helps integration of goals and principles of sustainable development when making decisions about spatial planning, taking into consideration the necessity of avoiding or restricting negative effects on the environment, human health and social-economic status of the population. 69 inadequate implementation of planning regulations creates negative effects on land as the environmental element, the environment on the whole, as well as the entire society. Another problem is the lack and absence of necessary information, opinions and proposals prepared for the public participation in the procedures of plan production, accounting for a potentially missing contribution by better-quality decisions in the plan production procedures.
In addition to the improvement of legal framework, the work on the wider concepts such as "a learning region" would contribute to the land quality improvement, all with the view to raising the awareness of the primary and secondary users of land of the proper attitude towards this irreplaceable resource (Stojkov, Pantić, 2006;Pantić, 2007).