The sad job of forest protection

Salary is low and delayed

In early December, we met Tran Dinh Ha (41 years old), as he and three colleagues were packing their belongings, preparing for a multi-day forest patrol. Ha is a specialized forest protection officer of the Tan Ky Forest Protection Management Board. Because they had to sleep in the forest, while the weather was about to rain, their luggage was quite cumbersome. From raincoats, hammocks to instant noodle packs stuffed into their backpacks.

“Eating instant noodles in the forest is convenient and economical,” Mr. Ha said with a smile. Looking at the spirit of these forest rangers, no one would think that they have not received a single salary for 5 months.

A moment of rest in the forest of Mr. Ha and his colleagues. Photo: Tien Hung

This forest protection station is assigned to manage an area of ​​over 2,200 hectares of forest in the communes of Tan Hop, Dong Van and Tien Ky. Previously, the station had 8 people, but due to low income, hard work and pressure, 4 younger people quit. Of the remaining 4 people, Mr. Ha is the youngest.

Having worked as a full-time forest ranger for 17 years, Mr. Ha’s current salary is only 4 million VND/month. His house is in Lat town (Tan Ky district), 40km from the station, so he can only visit his wife twice a month. His wife has no job, his two children are in school, and all household expenses depend on his meager salary. “When friends invite me to go out, I don’t dare to go. Every month, when I earn 4 million VND, I save 1 million VND to contribute to food with my colleagues at the station. The remaining 3 million VND I give to my wife,” said Mr. Ha.

The salary is low, but what's more unfortunate is that forest rangers like Mr. Ha do not receive their salary regularly every month. Last year, for 9 consecutive months, Mr. Ha and his colleagues did not receive their salary. "In 2021, we only received one payment in September, and then the next at the end of the year. We only receive our salary twice a year. Because of the delay in salary, family life has been turned upside down, we have to make do in all kinds of ways," Mr. Ha added.

Meal in the forest. Photo: Tien Hung

The situation in 2022 is not much better, when it was not until July that Mr. Ha and his colleagues received their first salary. And since then, they have not received a single penny. Meanwhile, the work of these people is extremely hard and dangerous. Every month, they have to spend at least 20 days on patrol. After 17 years in the profession, Mr. Ha estimates that the number of nights sleeping in hammocks in the forest is more than at home. In recent years, the situation of people destroying acacia forests has become more complicated. Because of that, conflicts between people and forest protection forces have increased. "I was beaten all the time, but fortunately, I have never been seriously injured. Many times when people came to cut down acacia forests, we caught them to deal with them, but the next day when we were on patrol, they stopped and beat them again," Mr. Ha said when we asked him about the dangers of the forest protection profession.

“If I hadn’t had a love for the mountains and forests since I was a child, I probably would have quit my job a long time ago. Luckily, my wife understands my passion and constantly encourages me, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to stick with it for much longer,” the man with a dark face after many years of enduring the wind and rain in the mountains and forests said, choking up.

Forest protection patrol. Photo: KLCC

Warning about the phenomenon of resignation

Mr. Ha's situation is also the current common situation at the Forest Protection Management Boards. Mr. Dinh Van Hai - Head of the Tan Ky Forest Protection Management Board said that due to low income and stressful work, from 2018 to now, the unit has had 16 people quit their jobs. Of these, 15 people are in the specialized forest protection force. Currently, the Tan Ky Forest Protection Management Board has only 18 people, of which 11 are on the payroll and 7 are on contract like Mr. Ha. They are responsible for protecting more than 8,000 hectares of forest in the area.

The specialized forest protection force is a contract worker under the management of the forest owners who pay their own salaries. This is the core force that carries out forest protection management, including directly patrolling and protecting, guiding the organization and accepting forest protection work for the subjects contracted to protect the forest. However, because the forest owners are mainly assigned to manage natural forests, while the forests are closed, most of them are in a situation where they cannot balance their revenue to ensure salary payment, leading to an inability to ensure a stable source of income and ensure the lives of the specialized forest protection force. According to Mr. Hai, the unit previously used the source from the contract policy to pay salaries to specialized forest protection people. However, this policy has been stopped for more than 2 years now. Therefore, the unit cannot find any other source of income.

In the past two years, up to 93 people in the forest protection force have quit their jobs. Illustration photo: KLCC

“We know that delaying salaries like this is a violation of the Labor Law, but there is no other way. This year, we have only paid 7 months of salary, but the money to pay that salary is also an advance, borrowed from the province. In the future, if the policy does not change, we do not know where to get the source to pay the debt to the province, not to mention continuing to pay salaries to our brothers,” Mr. Hai said, adding that the current forest protection and development policy does not have any specific regulations to ensure the operating budget of the specialized forest protection force, leading to forest owners having no basis to mobilize resources for this force.

Similarly in Tan Ky district, the Ky Son Forest Protection Management Board has been struggling to pay salaries for forest protection specialists for the past two years. “Although we have tried to find sources of income in every way, we still cannot guarantee it, and often have to owe our staff several months’ salary. Because we cannot hold on, in the past two years, four people have quit their jobs, making the already thin forest protection force even thinner,” said Mr. Le Hoang, Head of the Ky Son Forest Protection Management Board.

Not only contract employees, many people on the payroll, even holding high positions in the forest rangers, have also resigned due to low benefits, while the work is stressful and hard. According to statistics from the agricultural sector, from 2016 to the end of April 2022, 158 workers resigned. Of which, 34 were on the payroll and 124 were on long-term self-supporting contracts. The number of people who have resigned from 2020 to present is 93, of which 44 are forest rangers; 49 are specialized forest protection forces.

Forest rangers have a tough, stressful job but their salary is very low. Photo: KLCC

In addition, according to Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Deputy Head of Nghe An Forest Protection Department, in recent years, among those who requested to resign, there were 5 people holding the rank of District Chief. After receiving the application, the Department had to encourage them many times so that 3 of them gave up the intention of resigning. Mr. Le Xuan Dinh - Head of Quy Chau Forest Protection Department is one of them.

Mr. Dinh said that the time he submitted his resignation was at the end of 2019, when he still had 4 years left until retirement. “I have been a forest ranger for more than 30 years, and have never worked near home. I have been a district chief for nearly 10 years, but I resigned because of too much pressure and the responsibility of protecting the forest. While my health is getting weaker, the situation of people cutting down forests to plant acacia trees is complicated. Every time I receive news, no matter how far it is, I have to go through the forest to get there, which is very hard,” Mr. Dinh said, adding that because of the pressure of responsibility, his deputy and a station chief also resigned. In particular, the station chief accepted to sacrifice his time to return to his hometown to work abroad.

The Deputy Director of Nghe An Forest Protection Department said that the reason for the resignation of forest rangers is due to the pressure of work in forest management, protection and development, related to personal responsibility. The working environment is difficult, living conditions and travel are difficult. Prices are rising in remote forest areas, ethnic minority areas, making material, cultural and spiritual life difficult. Meanwhile, the salary allowance for specialized forest rangers is too low, not commensurate with the effort of the workers and is not stable, the situation of unpaid wages and unpaid insurance still occurs. Because the forest owners responsible for forest protection do not have the resources to pay, they depend on the State's policies.