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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.”