The fragile structure of metal swings at each step. The ladder rungs climbs the tower two hundred feet. From the soil and small carnivorous colored sago palms are getting smaller, until deep into the dark, step by step as the light begins to penetrate the foliage of trees and patches of sky appear rhyme. On top of the tower watches over the machinery for the surveys and the study of atmospheric gases released from the forest.
A sharp sound vibrates in the air like an empty trunk beaten. Then a movement of leaves. Speeds up, sweaty hands slipping on wet metal, but I fear the appointment arrival: two trees in the face two orangutans, a mother with a child. We are the same height, face to face. Ditperocarpa them on a branch, I on my artificial tree made of metal. They look at me with curiosity concealed by the apparent lack of interest: there is this stranger in their territory? It is an indulgent look, an old sage. That has seen many stories, so many excesses, and now look at the lives of human compassion with detachment.
vary between branches without haste, then realized that nothing happens, the long arms swinging loosely. I stop exaggerated towards the void and starts to climb while swinging the arms move away slowly.
Orango really means man. The real name is orang-utan, which in Malay means man of the forest. And for thousands of years these men have lived peacefully forest their forests. But then the men of the city have begun to cut their forests, and peaceful orangutans have retired, and then picked up again as the advancing chain saws. Now they are to die, like all other human relatives: gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos. The steps flow one after another. How many do remain? How many years remain before the orangutans disappear forever? When I arrive at the top of the tower, the vegetation is completely different. Black-stained dark green and brown carpet of leaves changing from a light green, almost silver, just grayed moisture toward the horizon. The sun beats down directly on the skin and burning up here. From above I see two orangutans away slowly, like two red spiders, stretching his arms, from branch to branch.
To the west the sea of \u200b\u200bforest stretches to infinity, to melt into the sky. But after a few kilometers to the east the forest stops abruptly giving way to a desert full of dry trunks. It is the relentless advance of civilization.
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