Nguyen Ngoc Anh, 34, has decided to leave his decade-long job as a forest ranger at Krong Bong Forestry Company in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. He showed many scars on his body which he had earned from the work.
A file photo of Anh and his colleges
"I'm missing my work a lot but I won't return to it," Anh said. "I devoted my youth to it but it paid me more in pain than anything else."
Anh remembered spending months patrolling the muddy and dangerous paths to protect the forests.
"Sometimes we were sent to remote areas which have no electricity, no clean water, no telephone coverage," he said. "We ate poor meals and could only visit our families once a month. We even faced dangerous situations when fighting forest poachers."
A forest ranger and his motorbike on a muddy forest road in Dak Lak Province
The former forest ranger recalled one of the worst memories when he was badly attacked by a group of forest poachers.
"It was Christmas Day in 2010 when we were driving motorbikes patrolling a forest area in M'Drak District," he reminisced. "A group of forest poachers suddenly appeared and shot at us. I got 29 bullets and my boss got five. Fortunately, we were brought to hospital for treatment in time. And like many other previous times, I returned to work after recovering."
But he finally decided to leave, not because of the hard and dangerous work, but because he just wanted to have more time for his family.
"Every time I look at the scars, I miss the forest a lot," he said. "I love the job but I need to spend more time with my family, my elderly parents."
Another forest ranger, Trinh Xuan Anh, 29, has also left the job at the Gia Nghia Protective Forest Management Board in Dak Nong Province after three years. He said that the work was so hard but the payment was modest, with only VND3.80 million (USD165) per month.
"I need to find a job with better pay," he said.
A report from the Dak Nong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development showed that 48 forest rangers left their jobs between 2016-2021.
According to the department, difficult and dangerous working conditions and shortages of support equipment are the main causes of the rising number of staff leaving.
"The forest protection work is facing big challenges in our area," the department vice director Le Quang Dan said.
A forest ranger is attacked by forest poarchers
The same situation is occurring in the neighbouring province of Dak Lak. Head of Dak Lak Provincial Forest Rangers Department, Nguyen Quoc Hung told Dantri/Dtinews that many staff members have resigned.
"We have so far dealt with 54 registrations," Hung said. "Three others have left their managerial positions due to high work pressure."
Director of the Krong Bong Forestry Company, Bui Quoc Tuan, said that they are managing over 24,450 hectares of forest including 22,000 hectares of natural forest in Dak Lak. Each forest ranger is assigned to protect 400 hectares but the salaries were low, at only between VND 4.50 - 5.20 million (USD196-226) per month.
"Many staff members have left due to the hard work and low payment," Tuan said. "We’ve received over 20 resignation letters since 2020."
Hung said that the current staff can only carry out 70 percent of the workload and they now need to recruit 107 more staff. However, few applicants have turned up.
Meanwhile, head of Tay Nguyen University, Nguyen Thanh Truc said that the number of students at the forestry department is falling.
"We usually have only ten students in recent years," he said. "We even had no students registering for the forestry department in 2020."
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