Law No.5 of 1982 on the protection of grasslands and forests.

This Law consisting of 27 articles aims at regulating the green cover protection in Libya. It establishes that the General People's Committee for Agricultural Land Reclamation and Reconstruction is responsible for protection, development and management of public forests and rangelands, and contributes to administrate private forests and pastoral farms. Other tasks are: control the implementation of the Law; declare an area of forests and grasslands as protected or preserved, specifying borders and specialties of these areas (which implies the prohibition of any form of exploitation or utilization of the area, both the vegetation and the subsoil when not provided by other resolutions); provide for rules and conditions for the utilization of public forests and forest products; provide for rules and conditions for the utilization of public pastures, including controls over the number of authorized animals to enter; decide necessary measures for the prevention of forest fires; work on soil stabilization and prevent degradation and desertification by developing the vegetable cover and afforestation; prohibit the cutting of some types of trees or plants in order to protect them. Article 8 states that the resolution that provides for issuing the permit to exploit a forest or pasture, protected or preserved, also establishes related fees and exemptions. The Committee can also decide in regard of contracts for exploitation of products of the public forests, provided that the purpose is either to increase exploitation of a forest resource has not yet been exploited or establish a new industry of forest products. Article 16 bans the following: cut, collect, burn, move or extract any products from the forests and grasslands; clean or cultivate the soil; build or fencing; create, interrupt or divert watercourses; use traps, nets, firearms or toxic substances or inflammable materials; introducing unlicensed animals in forests and public pastures in farmland or in orchards; live animals at free pasture, without a shepherd.