Hoang Kim Quy, a female official, received monkeys from local people to take care of them before releasing them into the forest
Nursing the passion with profession
Hoang Kim Quy, a female Forest Ranger working at the Forest Protection Department (FPD) of Hue city, was born and attached to the forest and mountain of Phong My commune (Phong Dien). Despite experiencing the difficult years, Quy has learned from this place the lessons relating to the need to preserve and protect "green lungs".
From each lesson of teachers, stories of adults and friends about forests, the love for forests and wild animals increasingly deepen into this mountainous girl's mind. And the love for the job of rangers with Quy also began to arise from here.
Quy said that there was a big incident that occurred more than 20 years ago in Phong My commune, when she was on the way home after school, Quy and a group of friends witnessed Phong Dien district's ranger officials successfully rescued a tiger cub and a bear that were being illegally hunted and transported. If these officials had been late for just a few minutes, the lives of these rare animals could have been threatened.
After being rescued and taken care of, the tiger cub was brought to the zoo in Hanoi to be safely nurtured and fondly named Lam Nhi by the forest rangers here. The happier Quy felt when the tiger was successfully rescued, the more painful she got when knowing that the bear had died from being injured too badly.
"At that time, I was sad and blamed the rangers for the bear’s death, but I still believed they had tried their best ..." confided Quy.
After this incident, a green club joining hands to protect forests and wildlife species was established in three mountainous communes, including Phong Son, Phong Xuan, Phong My (Phong Dien). And Quy, who was one of the club's members, had the opportunity to learn about animals and plants, participated in competitions and quizzes-to-learn, went camping or had picnics in nature, etc., to help forest and wildlife protection activities. Since then, the love for the forest and the passion for forest rangers work became deeper and deeper in this mountain girl.
A fire was extinguished after receiving the information from the forest ranger - Kim Quy
After graduating from high school, Quy did not hesitate but apply to the Faculty of Forestry, Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry. During the learning process, Quy was instructed carefully by many teachers and students of the previous courses, and she also participated in scientific research on forestry. At the same time, she also collaborated on scientific research, took part in the Youth union’s and associations' activities to practice her skills, her confidence and boldness in learning and prepared for the future path after graduating from university to fulfill her passions and dreams.
After graduating from university, Quy was accepted to work for the Provincial Forestry Science and Technology Association. From 2013 up to now, after becoming a forest ranger she worked at the Forest Protection Department in Phong Dien district, then moved to work at the Forest Protection Department of Hue city.
Being careless of hardship and challenges
During the time working in the Forest Protection Department in Phong Dien district, this female forest ranger was assigned by the unit to be in charge of 6 coastal communes with a large number of protected forest areas under project 661 and participated in communication activities, nature conservation, forest environment services of the district.
Quy shared that, at that time, many commune leaders and officials seemed quite surprised and wondered: "Why is there a female forest ranger? Can she do the missions? Or can she patrol the forest? Local authorities need the local rangers who can work, not these female rangers".
The female forest ranger released precious turtle to the natural environment
When hearing these unexpected sentences, Quy was heartbroken! However, these sayings were the driving force for her to successfully complete the missions, which helped local people and authorities perform well and effectively in forest management and protection, forest fire-prevention, and fighting.
It has been more than seven years since Quy "fell in love" with the forest ranger job; she has helped 13 communities and two groups of households allocated natural forests by the State to manage, to protect and benefit from the policy of payment for environmental services. Having financial resources and the enthusiastic and systematic guidance of Quy, local people and authorities have done better in forest management and protection, organized many activities to enrich the forest, purchase equipment for patrol, forest protection, buying costumes, and tools for fire protection, etc.
Not to be known as a useless female forest ranger, besides sticking to the area, participating in regular patrol and forest protection according to the unit's plans, Quy occasionally combined with a few officials to organize patrols named "forest fire week" unexpectedly, at peak times.
Last summer, we joined Quy in a "forest fire week" in the area of Hue city and suddenly discovered a fire that was in danger of spreading quickly over a large area. Through the radio information system, Quy informed the unit to send forces to extinguish in time.
Without Quy's sudden inspection that day, the pine forest in the area near Huyen Tran Cong Chua Temple could have been in danger of being burned and spread on a large scale.
Quy shared: "There were many times that I was eating lunch or dinner, or on weekends leave, or busy with family work; but, when I heard that there was a forest fire, I had to put aside housework, together with the armed forces, colleagues and the people, to stop the "fire invasion".
Quy said that the forest is vast, but the forest rangers are in small number; it is inevitable to socialize and mobilize people to participate in protecting the safety of forests and wildlife species. Quy usually suggests the Office hold educational activities frequently and diversely to raise the awareness of people and students in participating in forest protection, such as painting, art and media competitions, etc.
The great joy for this female ranger is the deep forest patrol to detect, prevent and handle the deforestation, illegal hunting, and transportation of forest products and wildlife in time. However, the happiest memory maybe when the Tan My community, Phong My commune, the team in charge of Quy, won the first prize in the whole province in the competition about management and forest protection.
According to Mr. Pham Ngoc Dung, Deputy Director of Provincial Forest Protection Department, the whole province has 242 forest rangers working at the department and FDFs in districts, towns, and Hue city. Among 32 female rangers, there are 16 people directly working in the forest protection profession, and the rest are in the administration department. Most of these officials have improved and tried to overcome difficulties and challenges to fulfill their tasks successfully.
Story and photos: Hoang Trieu