Mar 16, 2022
Guards and watchers typically live in field posts set up inside the forests for weeks at a time. Each beat guard is responsible for 1,200 to 3,700 acres of land. Depending on budgets, there may be a watcher or two to assist each guard. They are required to patrol the area on foot, and they get only four days off a month to visit their families. Often, the posts don’t have electricity or running water.
Shalini Venugopal Bhagat, ‘Risking their lives, for little pay, to guard India’s forests’, New York Times