Rio Claro villagers protest over jobs, forests

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Vil­lagers of Rio Claro took to the streets in protest on Mon­day, call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) to re­plant forests cleared for en­er­gy projects and pro­vide long-promised em­ploy­ment to res­i­dents.

Armed with plac­ards, dozens of res­i­dents, led by Rio Claro Un­em­ploy­ment As­so­ci­a­tion (RCUA) pres­i­dent Louis Castil­lo, marched to the Point Lisas Round­about to high­light what they de­scribed as years of bro­ken promis­es fol­low­ing de­for­esta­tion linked to the Cas­cadu­ra project.

“We are will­ing to work. The work that we want to do is very, very im­por­tant—we want to plant back the for­est,” said Nan­di­ni Ram­bar­ran. “We have chil­dren suf­fer­ing. We have old peo­ple suf­fer­ing. Please hear our plight.”

Ram­bar­ran said af­ter over­com­ing can­cer, she has been un­able to se­cure em­ploy­ment and is now liv­ing in un­safe con­di­tions.

“My house is very, very bad to live in right now … I signed up sev­er­al times for grants through the Gov­ern­ment sys­tem—noth­ing came through yet,” she said.

Oth­er res­i­dents shared sim­i­lar con­cerns, say­ing un­em­ploy­ment has af­fect­ed the com­mu­ni­ty for years.

Michelle Ann Si­mon said she has been search­ing for work for four years with­out suc­cess.

“We want the for­est back … We want to work in the for­est,” she said, adding that her fam­i­ly re­lies on sup­port from her moth­er as she strug­gles to pro­vide for her 11-year-old son at­tend­ing sec­ondary school.

Castil­lo ac­cused NGC of fail­ing to ho­n­our com­mit­ments to re­for­est lands cleared dur­ing oil and gas op­er­a­tions and pro­vide jobs to res­i­dents.

“They cut down the for­est; they’re tak­ing the re­sources, and now when it is time to plant back and give peo­ple work, they’re drag­ging their feet,” Castil­lo said.

Rio Claro villagers stage a protest on Monday 23 March 2026, calling for jobs and urging the reforestation of the area.

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion had been in dis­cus­sions with NGC for three years and had re­ceived writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion of the com­pa­ny’s com­mit­ment un­der its Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pol­i­cy of “no net loss”, which in­cludes re­plant­i­ng forest­ed ar­eas.

Ac­cord­ing to cor­re­spon­dence dat­ed April 2, 2025, NGC stat­ed it would re­for­est lands cleared for the Cas­cadu­ra Project and con­sid­er the RCUA’s in­volve­ment, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Castil­lo said since then, no mean­ing­ful progress has been made.

“For the past four years they cut down hectares of for­est, but noth­ing is be­ing done to re­store it. The peo­ple here [are] ready to work. We have about 150 per­sons look­ing for jobs,” he said.

He added that the group had writ­ten to sev­er­al of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, but re­ceived no clear time­line for the project.

Castil­lo al­so raised con­cerns about the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact of de­for­esta­tion, say­ing res­i­dents who re­ly on the for­est for med­i­c­i­nal plants and liveli­hoods are now af­fect­ed.

“When you cut down the for­est, you de­stroy the ecosys­tem—the wildlife, the feed­ing, every­thing,” he said. “We can’t even get the herbs peo­ple de­pend on to heal.”

The group warned that Mon­day’s protest was on­ly the be­gin­ning, with plans to es­ca­late ac­tion if au­thor­i­ties fail to re­spond.

“This is Plan A. Plan B will be in Rio Claro,” Castil­lo said. “The peo­ple had enough.”

Guardian Me­dia has reached out to Min­is­ter Rati­ram and Min­is­ter Mooni­lal and is await­ing re­spons­es.