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90% of Chu Yang Sin National Park's Forest Ranger and Specialized Forest Protection Forces
are the main providers for their families (Photo: WildAct) |
Chu Yang Sin National Park (CYSNP) is one of Vietnam's biodiversity hotspots that have to be conserved. However, this location faces illegal poaching and hunting of wild animals, and harsh weather increases the risk of forest fires. With a total size of around 60,000 hectares, Chu Yang Sin National Park has around 60,000 hectares with 100 forest rangers, which means that each ranger will be in charge of 600 hectares of forest. The work has Chu Yang Sin’s rangers always on duty, day and night in a station. For them, family time is precious but when an emergency arises, rangers take the road without hesitation. However, the limited benefits and the dangerous nature of the work have placed burdens on their shoulders that are hard to put into words.
How to strike a balance between their primary source of income and the rising cost of living is one of the key worries forest rangers and their families have. After visiting some families of rangers, specialized forest protection forces, and members of the H'Mong community forest protection patrol team living in Lak district and Krong Bong district, Dak Lak province, WildAct found that their family circumstances were still extremely difficult. Seven out of eight families are in extremely difficult circumstances; the forest rangers have children with fatal diseases and have to constantly be working for long periods of time.
“90% of Chu Yang Sin National Park's Forest Ranger and Specialized Forest Protection Forces are the main providers for their families”, shared Mr. Loc Xuan Nghia, Director of Chu Yang Sin National Park. But the nature of their jobs still keeps them from being able to completely care for their families, even though station personnel constantly assist one another in setting up duty schedules to come home.
If their child becomes ill, they have to take out a loan to meet their daily expenses and pay for their medical care. There are special cases where forest rangers have children with serious illnesses and need to seek long-term medical care.
"In the process of working with forest rangers and community investigation groups specializing in protecting forests, we realized that officials here still face many difficulties,” said Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, Director of the Vietnam Wildlife Action Center.
Understanding the feelings of forest rangers, WildAct cooperated with Vi Nhan Ai MoMo to launch the fundraising program "Sprouts of the forest" with the desire to award scholarships and gifts to welcome the new school year for the children of forest rangers who are working their best to protect Chu Yang Sin national forest, thereby creating motivation and promoting the dedication and sense of responsibility towards their job.
WildAct calls on the community to join hands to raise funds in the amount of $4,062 (100,000,000 VND), specifically: awarding 10 scholarships, each worth 5,000,000 VND to 10 families in especially difficult circumstances; awarding 150 gifts, each gift equivalent to 100,000 VND to celebrate the new school year for children of forest rangers; supporting education to raise awareness and inspire children about nature conservation and biodiversity protection in the region and in Vietnam.
These gifts represent the wishes of the community for the children, hoping they will have a great new school year. At the same time these gifts help share the burden of their studies on their families. And most likely, thanks to the love of the community, the love of their parents and their great love for the national forests, children will better understand their parents' ideals, directing them to become future conservationists for the country./.