On the Government Electronic Information Portal on April 12, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy (name changed, in Quang Tri) reflected on the dissolution of the Forest Protection Department under the Management Board of Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park and the transfer of officials to the specialized force for forest protection under the Center for Forest Protection and World Heritage from June 2025.
She requested to clarify whether the period from the conversion to before January 26, 2026 is calculated cumulatively to enjoy seniority allowance or not.
Answering this content, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said that on January 26, 2026, the Government issued Decree No. 42/2026/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decrees in the field of forestry and forest protection, effective from the date of signing and promulgation.
Point a, Clause 2, Article 16 of Decree No. 01/2019/ND-CP dated January 1, 2019 of the Government on Forest Rangers and Specialized Forest Protection Forces (amended and supplemented according to the provisions of Article 66 of Decree No. 42/2026/ND-CP) stipulates: "Officials of the Specialized Forest Protection Forces of forest owners are entitled to salary and allowance regimes like Forest Rangers (excluding public service allowances) and other regimes according to the provisions of law".
At the same time, Article 20 of Decree No. 01/2019/ND-CP stipulates: "In case the Management Board of Special-Use Forests, the Management Board of Protection Forests has a Forest Protection Department when dissolving the Forest Protection Department and switching to the organizational model of the Forest Protection Specialized Forces as prescribed in Article 15 of this Decree, the officials who have been ranked as Forest Protection Officers, are enjoying professional preferential allowances, professional seniority allowances when adjusted to belong to the Forest Protection Specialized Forces, directly performing forest protection tasks, will continue to have their allowances preserved at the current level until there is a new policy to replace the current salary policy and allowance regime".
This regulation is a mechanism to ensure rights in the transitional period, not to give rise to calculating additional time to increase the level of seniority allowance.
Therefore, for the period before Decree No. 42/2026/ND-CP took effect, officials of the Forest Protection Task Force are only allowed to preserve the seniority allowance they are enjoying, not counting the accumulated time to determine the increase in seniority allowance.
