Marx once said: When the profit reaches 100%, they dare to trample on all the laws of the world;
When the profit reaches 300%, they dare to risk hanging.
This sentence is a true portrayal of Robert, who comes from the famous African island country of Madagascar, which is a famous tourist mecca with a beautiful environment and rich species.
Madagascar has a huge amount of forest resources, living with a variety of rare animals and plants, and four years ago, Robert was a glorious ranger, patrolling the forest every day to fight against the thieves who destroyed the forest.
The original poachers were mainly to catch wildlife and sell them around the world in exchange for money, a job that was highly profitable but also very dangerous, and injuries and deaths were commonplace, and there was a risk of arrest and imprisonment at any time.
But for the sake of profit, these people still took risks and were active in the forest, until people found a surprising number of mahogany here, and things slowly changed.
Mahogany is a special kind of wood, is the preferred material for high-end furniture, has always been very scarce, the price is extremely high, a top mahogany can sell for tens of millions of dollars, relative to hunting wild animals, motionless trees, undoubtedly become a better choice.
You know, even in the local area where the number of redwoods is flooded, one can sell for at least 5,000 US dollars, while Madagascar's per capita GDP in 2018 is only more than 400 US dollars, and the price of a redwood cannot be earned for ten years without eating or drinking.
In the face of such a high price, it is difficult for anyone not to be moved, Robert was fired when he was a ranger, Robert who lost his job turned into a member of the poacher, from a ranger to a poacher, and the two extreme transformations naturally occurred.
The long career of ranger made Robert more familiar with the forest than others, and he knew more about the places where the redwoods grew, and soon attracted many people to follow, and Robert went directly from ranger to the leader of the thieves, which can not be said to be a great irony.
But the work is not easy to do, with the rampant theft in these years, the number of mahogany has decreased sharply, there are almost no mahogany trees on the outskirts of the forest, and to find a suitable target, you must go deep into the forest.
Madagascar is located in the tropics, with countless rivers in its endless forests, where the rainfall is staggering, and the slow-flowing streams will turn into rushing rivers in a short time, frantically devouring everything around them.
In addition, the steep peaks, the poisonous insect beasts in the forest are also their enemies, of course, the most dangerous is the peers, in the irregular forest, robbery and gunfight is a very normal thing.
So every time you enter the forest, it is normal to be injured, and death happens from time to time, but these problems are not a problem in the face of high interests, and countless people step into the forest with dreams every day.
For Robert and his party, the most difficult problem is how to find the mahogany, which is also the most troublesome problem for all thieves, this process takes a lot of time, the mahogany that once roamed the mountains has disappeared, the search process is getting longer and longer, before half an hour can find one, now it may take a few days, ten days, or even longer.
Robert was lucky this time, just the fourth day of departure, he successfully found a huge mahogany, everyone cheered, tired and swept away, conservative estimates that the tree can earn at least 6,000 US dollars (at least 30,000 yuan), excited people began to cut down.
But the mahogany trees are too huge, and there are many trees around them, and the trees after cutting down cannot fall, so they must clear the surrounding trees, so they have to spend most of the day.
(Studies have shown that for every mahogany tree cut down, at least 10 large trees will be "buried", and this behavior occurs here all the time, hundreds of thousands of large trees are sacrificed in vain every year, which also seriously affects the forest environment, and the local government vigorously punishes the theft of mahogany, but the effect is always not obvious.) ）
"Boom"! This large tree, which had been growing hard for decades, collapsed in a short period of time, and the workers sharply cut off the excess branches and tips, and the quality of the tree was very good, and the estimated weight was more than 500 kilograms, enough to sell for a sky-high price.
Mahogany is finally here, but an even bigger conundrum lies ahead:
How to get this thing out of the way that is more than ten meters long and weighs hundreds of kilograms?
In the forest, not to mention the road, many times there is no foot point, often have to take a detour to pass, here just hiking is extremely difficult, now to bring this long and heavy tree, the degree of difficulty can be imagined.
But no matter how difficult it is, they must also take the tree out, which is their dream. If successful, they will be able to live a good life for the next few months.
Without the help of machinery and tools, they could only tie this huge mahogany with rope, dragging and dragging hard, unable to walk 5 kilometers a day, during which they had to constantly cut down trees on the road and make roads.
Encountering uphill and downhill is the most difficult, the rainforest is wet and slippery, a person falling down may cause a chain reaction, every year someone is killed and injured by the falling mahogany, and there are also those who are entangled in the ropes on the mahogany and dragged off the cliff by the mahogany.
In just a few tens of kilometers, Robert and they walked for a full 9 days, and the whole team was in a state of disarray, half of them were injured, and finally arrived at their destination, the river.
Yes, they're going to use the river to transport the next stretch of the road.
Throw the mahogany directly into the river, then sit on the prepared kayak, follow the mahogany all the way down, the river in the primeval forest is extremely fierce, in addition to the turbulent water, the water is covered with all kinds of sharp stones, sitting on the unprotected kayak, at any time may hit the stone and overturn, once it falls, it can only resign itself to fate.
Although this way is extremely dangerous, but it is the most convenient and convenient way, once the kayak enters the river, the operation of the boat becomes a fantasy, in such a turbulent river, the kayak all the way across the collision, the only thing they rely on is a simple oar in their hands, but many times, this has no effect with the oar.
In this way, mahogany "led" a group of people down the water, during which the kayak experienced several rollovers, but fortunately the person was fine, so it has been drifting, the whole process lasted for a full 5 hours, as the water gradually calmed down, indicating that it had left the original forest, the destination was about to arrive.
But here is not the end, there is the final challenge, they dragged the logs out of the water, put in the canoe that had been prepared long ago, covered with a full load of goods, because there are often patrolling people here, once the people who steal the mahogany are found, not only the goods will be confiscated, a prison disaster is inevitable, this is the last link in the transportation, but also the most dangerous link.
Many people fell on this last step, Robert was lucky this time, successfully crossed the water, sent the redwood to the acquirer, although by this time every member was exhausted and all wounded, but everything was worth it, and they were about to usher in a few months of comfortable days.
And these mahogany will go to sea by boat, and most of them will be sold to Asia, turned into precious furniture, and appear in every family.
With the excessive deforestation of Malagasy forests over the years, mahogany has slowly become a rare species here, and in this way, one day, mahogany will disappear into this land forever, and the consequences of environmental destruction are just beginning to appear.
What do you think about that?
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