national

Hard knocks for park rangers

The country’s park rangers underwent additional training to better weather the dangers of their job.

About half of the country’s 345 park and forest rangers met with officials at the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (Anam) last week for training exercises aimed at better preparing them for their task of safeguarding Panama’s 2.6 million hectares of national parks and protected areas.

In Panama, being a park ranger is not a cushy job, especially if your territory includes remote regions of the Darién province, where shifts can last up to 30 consecutive days.

Parque Nacional Darién director Domi Luis Domínguez said that rangers assigned to his 579,000 hectare park wanted to reduce the shifts to a week, as in other areas, but that their request was denied. “So they remain in the operative centers 30 in a row, day and night.”

During that month-long shift, not only do the Darién rangers face the dangers inherent in forests and jungles, but many encounter illegal hunters and loggers. Moreover, persuasion is their only protection against poachers, since laws prohibits park rangers from carrying firearms.

Domínguez, who defends the law banning firearms, explained that a personal experience with interlopers taught him that the situation only escalates when both parties are armed.

Until recently, getting lost in heavily forested areas also posed a real risk for the rangers. But they have since been given radios and GPS systems that allow them to know how far they are from the nearest ranger station.

What does a park ranger earn for his trouble? Anam reports revealed that the average salary is $350 per month.