LETTERS: Those who hold the position of game warden, forest ranger and settlement officer are all field officers.
The duty of a field officer is not in the office but in the jungle. Let me elaborate as I was a settlement officer in upper Kelantan.
I joined the service in 1954, and my principal was the District Officer (DO), who considered one minute late an answerable mistake. Indeed, punctuality and resoluteness were important during working hours.
The DO would call the game warden and the forest ranger for a meeting whenever he wanted to utilise state land or degrade an area to create a settlement. There were instances where the DO ordered me to explain where I should start in finding a settlement.
The forest ranger would ensure that I would not encroach on the forest, while the game warden would monitor to ensure that wild animals wouldn't cross over my settlement.
I would return to the office at the end of the week to report my progress to the DO. I would do this routine every two weeks if the distance was too far. As for the game warden and the forest ranger, they had their own schedules. However, I used to come across them whenever I returned to the jungle.
Due to their work discipline in carrying out their responsibility, there were no poachers and no illegal logging activities occurred in the jungle. This, I should say, should be the aim at all times.
Abdullah Sani Ismail
Tanah Merah, Kelantan
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times