Travel thousands of kilometers following the call of the jungle

Dong Nai Nature and Culture Reserve has just received a team of young intellectuals from the remote Northwest mountains to join. They are hardworking, forest-loving young people, children of ethnic minorities in the North, who have received formal training to contribute to protecting the old forests - the green lungs of the Southeast region.

Mr. Nguyen Hoang Hao, Director of Dong Nai Nature and Culture Reserve, said that the entire reserve currently has 231 officers, civil servants, and workers, responsible for managing over 100,000 hectares of forest and water surface. Compared to the target assigned by Dong Nai Provincial People's Committee, the unit still lacks many staffing targets, especially the forest management and protection force. Therefore, in recent times, the reserve has always had a policy of recruiting new specialized forest rangers and protection forces to supplement the force that has retired, transferred jobs, and resigned.

Responding to the call of the old forests of Ma Da, Hieu Liem, Vinh An (in the conservation area), in 2020, the Mong ethnic boys: Thao A Cho (forestry engineer, Dien Bien province), Sung A Tu (college of forest resource management and protection, old Son La province) and Cha A Tra (intermediate level of forest resource management and protection, old Son La province) joined the conservation area. On the first day of recruitment, they were assigned to the Mobile Ranger Station, the main unit of the Conservation Area Forest Ranger Department.

Forest rangers are ethnic minorities patrolling and checking the forest.

Officer Sung A Tra smiled gently and said that the forest in the reserve is different from the rocky mountains of Son La province, where he was born and raised. During the forest patrol, if the direction is not determined correctly, it is easy to lose the footsteps of his teammates. Meanwhile, the rocky mountains of his hometown, although having many high hills and deep ravines, do not need a compass or GPS device to go to the forest, just choose a high position, look out and immediately determine the direction, without fear of losing track.

Many senior officers in the cultural area have enthusiastically guided each person to get acquainted with the characteristics of the forest, animals, recognize the forest encroachment behavior of loggers and the customs and habits of people living near the forest. Through that, they have discovered many interesting things that the school curriculum where they studied had not mentioned. "The Mong ethnic people in my hometown still have the habit of carrying flintlock guns and traps into the forest without fear of forest rangers and forest guards stopping them. In the conservation area, this is absolutely forbidden, especially all illegal forest encroachment. Thanks to that, the forest and animals here are always peaceful" - officer Thao A Cho confided.

Because of the attractiveness of the reserve forest, the camaraderie and guidance that the cadres Thao A Cho, Sung A Tu, and Cha A Tra have invited young Mong and Dao people from their hometowns and other northern provinces to join the reserve. By early 2022, the reserve had dozens of Mong ethnic intellectuals from the Northwest joining, including Giang A Khay and Sung A Minh (Dien Bien province); Lau A Tong, Lau A Senh, Sung A Ka Dinh (Son La province) and Mua A Chay (Lao Cai province)...

Director of the conservation area Nguyen Hoang Hao expressed that in addition to their strong health, love for the forest and professional training, his new "soldiers" are people who always know how to overcome difficulties. Their salaries are quite low and they work far from their families, but they always do their jobs well, live optimistically, love life and know how to put aside difficulties and worries. "My teammates have very strong footwork when patrolling the forest, and are very sharp in recognizing and alerting to signs of forest encroachment. They are honest, simple, strictly follow the agency's regulations and rules and are not afraid of difficulties and hardships" - Head of the Mobile Forest Protection Station Nguyen Ba Loc assessed his teammates.

According to Mr. Loc, the most valuable thing about the young ethnic minorities is that they are always willing to volunteer to stay at the station to cover shifts for their teammates (who have unexpected leave) with a very high sense of responsibility. This is the characteristic of the forest rangers, a valuable tradition that generations of forest rangers here have worked hard to build.

Source: https://cand.com.vn/Phong-su-tu-lieu/vuot-ngan-cay-so-di-theo-tieng-goi-cua-rung-gia-i784451/