As a reward to hardworking forest rangers, the Forestry Bureau yesterday announced a pay raise of at least NT$3,000 (US$97.06) monthly for about 900 rangers, but said that recruiting contract employees would remain its policy.
The nation’s forest rangers are tasked with patrolling and surveying forested areas, helping with rescue missions and preventing illegal lumbering, with 1,089 rangers each in charge of nearly 2,000 hectares of forested areas, the bureau said.
However, they only earn NT$27,434 to NT$34,916 per month, which is underwhelming considering the importance and danger of their duties, it said.
A personnel shortage and generational gap among workers, as well as challenges posed by “cunning” illegal loggers, are major problems facing forest rangers, whose love for nature is often their reason to stay on the job, the bureau said, citing remarks by some rangers at an event on July 31 last year celebrating World Ranger Day.
To retain professional rangers with more reasonable welfare, the bureau said that it last year tendered a proposal to increase their pay to the Executive Yuan, which approved it on Monday.
Rangers would get an additional allowance of at least NT$3,000 per month for regular patrols, surveying wildlife habitats and collecting important plant seeds, it said.
Those involved in more dangerous duties, such as putting out wildfires, nighttime operations against illegal loggers and other deep-mountain missions lasting more than five days, would get additional allowances of up to NT$12,000 per month, depending on their work records, the bureau’s Personnel Office said.
The salaries of nearly 900 forest rangers would be retroactively adjusted from January, while other workers would not be affected, the office said, adding that it has forecast an increase of NT$41 million in annual expenditure from the pay raise.
Among the about 900 rangers, 74 percent were recruited as technicians via national examinations before 2005, while the remainder were admitted later as contract workers, it said.
It has been Executive Yuan policy since 2005 to no longer recruit rangers through exams, so the bureau can only fill positions left vacant by retiring rangers by employing contract workers, it added.
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