Avoiding the Trap of Natural Wealth

Picture a quiet morning deep in Sumatra. Sunlight slips through a canopy that has stood for centuries. The air smells of damp soil and leaves. Then a chainsaw starts, and in a matter of minutes, a single tree worth millions of rupiah hits the ground.

For many people, this is the easiest money they will ever earn. One cubic meter of teak or mahogany can bring in 5 to 7 million rupiah. Hardwoods like merbau can reach 15 million. If you convert it to dollars, that is 300 to 900 USD.

Cut a hundred cubic meters, and you walk away with around 30,000 USD. No factory. No night shifts. No sales pitch. Just a forest, a blade, and the promise of fast wealth.

This is why ancient rainforests are so heavily targeted. Trees that grow slowly in untouched forests become stronger, older, and more beautiful. The grain is richer, the fibers tighter, the trunks wider. Wood from plantations, rushed and uniform, simply does not compare.

But plantations demand commitment. You need land, seedlings, time, and care. Forests ask for nothing. They are ready-made fortune. And that is the problem. The very convenience that draws people in is the same thing that empties the land. When the trees disappear, the money disappears with them. The business collapses not because it was unprofitable, but because it consumed the source it depended on. 

Illustration: private collection

The Ancestors’ Trees

Thousands of kilometers away, in the mountains of Tajikistan, there are trees that have watched generations rise and fall. Mulberries and junipers that have lived longer than recorded history. They stand there because the people who live among them, particularly Folk Tajik Faith believers, believe these trees are sacred. To them, a tree is not timber. It is a home for ancestors, a guardian of the village, a witness to every human joy and misfortune.

Walk through a village on a quiet afternoon and you may see pieces of cloth tied to a branch. Each cloth carries a story. Someone battling illness. Someone grieving. Someone hoping for a change in luck. Outsiders might call it superstition. But for the people who live here, this is a conversation with the world that holds them.

What their ancestors understood long before science put it into textbooks is that these trees do more than stand tall. Their roots grip the mountain soil and keep the land from crumbling. They stop landslides. They hold back mud floods during storms. They protect riverbanks from erosion. They secure the water that families depend on. Mulberry trees even help clean the dusty air that blows through the region.

The rituals may seem spiritual, but the wisdom behind them is practical. Reverence saved forests that would otherwise be gone.

When Belief Becomes Protection

Nature’s wealth is seductive. A forest can look like a pile of money waiting to be claimed. If someone tells you that you can earn tens of thousands of dollars by cutting it down, the temptation is real. Yet money today does not stretch the way it used to. One dollar or a hundred dollars can vanish with the same speed.

Tajikistan faces the same deforestation pressures that hit tropical countries. The government cannot fight it alone, so it turns to the very communities who still hold the old beliefs. Their sense of responsibility comes not from law or policy, but from spirituality. They protect trees not because they are told to, but because they feel bound to them.

Modern life is pulling young people away from these traditions. Still, the guardians from the Folk Tajik Faith keep going. They continue to tend the trees, watch the forests, and protect what they can. They understand something simple: the quick profit from cutting a tree is nothing compared to the quiet disaster that follows after it is gone. (dswas)