How Land Diving Works

and Jerry's over there. Although we haven't been in the studio, Chuck, can I have been together on the road, Yeah, doing stuff you should know the podcast, calling live exclamation, leaving our stank all over this great nation, hoping to bring our stank into other great nations. Yeah, we're looking at you, Great Britain. We have no idea whether you want us to come over or not. We're trying to feel you guys out. Let us know if you want us to come to a show there. Yeah, and that goes for

other cities. Um, well, let's just recap. We went to We had a great fun time on the Warm Climbs tour. Big thanks to squarespace again for sponsoring the tour uh and allowing UH the free printing and giving out of posters which is always wonderful when people say how much did these costs? And I say zero money because Uncle squarespace pay. That's right. So we went to San Francisco. That was fantastic. Um, you want to tell your San

Francisco story, it's so wonderful. The little kid. Yeah. So I was on Fillmore Street, which is my new favorite street in San Francisco, and there's this little girl crying and pointing at a man. And I couldn't figure out what the girl's problem was until I overheard her mom say, no, honey, he's not throwing that away. That's a recycling. Then he's putting that cup. And I swear to God that happen. Yeah, it could not be more San Francisco than that. Oh,

I can top that. That same street later that day or the next day, I saw a woman crossing at about that point and she had her arm in a sling and the sling was berber wow. And the cast was probably made from like recycled bandages from you know, patients who didn't make it or once who did. They just took him anyway, right, Uh? Oh, very nice Monty Python reference. Uh. Then we went to San Diego performed in a church, yes ironic, Yeah, which was a little weird but cool and fun. It was the church from

the Prince of Darkness. That's right, or at least it was after we left. I'm virtually convinced that's what it was. It might have been. I have to go back and watch it again, but I mean it was very reminiscent of it. Uh. Where Dallas after that? Yeah, we played in the theater where Lee Harvey Oswald hit out. That's right. And the Dallas crowd was great and raucous and they actually there's a point in this show where I do aye haw and they hold back. It was an involuntary

spasm from the Dallas crowd. And they also at least two or three people shot guns into the air. And you saw Tim Gallant hat. Yes, did it hold ten gallons milk? At least maybe a baker's dozens of gallons. Uh. Then we went to Austin, Texas, which is a wonderful city. And by the way, we're gonna be back in Austin for South by Southwest, uh and performing and our very own we're getting like our own house, not of stuff you should know house, you know, like the speakeasy we're

gonna be there. Yeah, the City of Atlanta speakeasy house I think like fifth in Congress or something like. Yeah. So look for us again Austin, Texas in March. Yeah. I don't know if you guys have heard of it or not. It's gonna be a south By Southwest just look at him. Where do we go next? We went

to New Orleans. It was wonderful and uh, I want to shout out uh ms Kristen Bell and Mr Dack Shepard, the lovely acting couple who we know listen to our show because they've been kind enough to tweet about us in support in the past. And I was at a bakery in New Orleans and came out. She said, Kristen Bell's in there, and I felt like I had to go say something and thank her. And she was delighted to meet me and relieved seconds after I said who

I was, that you weren't just some weirdo dude. I come lumbering like this woodland beast comes lumbering up to a bakery and she was like literally shielding her children from it. And yeah, oh, oh your chuck, thank god. Uh. And she couldn't have been nicer and she met Ruby and insisted I changed Ruby staper there in her booth because there was no changing room. And so thanks for your support, ms ms Bell, ms Bell. Yes, yeah, I can't call it Kristen h. I can call dackx Dax

because he's just cool like that. Uh. And then we went to Atlanta. That was probably the most fun show I've ever done. That was a fun hometown show. Sold it out, family and friends. It was just a wonderful special night. And I stayed out until three in the morning, drink way too much. And I can attest to this because I saw Chuck the next day for the last show in Birmingham, and both of us took it easy that night because we both had to turn around and

drive home after the show. Two am back to Atlanta, two exhausted little stuffers. I was impressed by the Birmingham crowd. They showed up and they were like, Um, whatever impressions you may have of us, they're wrong. Entertain us smartly. Yeah, and when we did, we we didn't know the roof off that sucker. It was sort of a test of a smaller Southeastern market and they came through. So yeah, it was a good crowd. In Birmingham too, and the venue was really neat to the work Play space is

really neat and they were very nice. All podcasters out there who go on tour, check out Workplay in Birmingham. There were dogs running around after inside there, which is perfect for us. That's our tour. Yeah, thanks everybody, And if you're wondering what we did, you have to wait until we released the live show. That's right. Oh. One more quick announcement, um, if anyone in Atlanta wants to come see my mediocre old man band, Oh, we are

playing February twenty six at the Starbar. Awesome. I'm super excited because it's just the age old great venue in Atlanta and they mistakenly let us on the bill. Uh so come on out if you want to see see you smelt some faces? Is that what you guys? Dos? Shredding? Shredding my friend nice? So that's it. You got any other announcements? No, great, I don't have an old man band, so no, well you can. Dreams can't come true. Starbar is one of mine, and you may places. Yeah yeah,

are we invited? No you can't. Actually you're on a list like do not let in I think you should have been like Atlanta minus Josh. My old man band is going to be playing. Yeah, you can come if you want. Nice. Great, let's see what else, Chuck, land diving. Oh yeah, we've put it off long enough. That's right, all right, the land diving. It sounds weird, and it is a little weird. It's um this ancient cut them they We actually know the origin story too. We know

where it started. You know, it never came across wind specifically. It seems to have happened some point back in the distant past. But I'm not entirely certain that the distant passes like two thousand years ago or three years ago, in which case it wouldn't be ancient. No, but it's still be. This still distant past is ancient? Is that quantified? Uh? No? I never even thought to see surely it's not. Why Why don't you just continue? I might even look it up, okay,

which we rarely do. So Chuck's gonna look that up. I'll keep talking. There's an island called Vanuatu. It's in the South Pacific. Survivor did a season there, but even before Survivor it was famous, and it was famous for this land diving thing. Um and back in Uh, there's actually specific island in Vanuatu called Pentecost Island. Uh. Clearly the missionaries got their hands on that island and um, Pentecost Island is where this the the origin of land

diving or something called. It's called nag hall or nag hall h o L. Yeah, not the easiest word to pronounce. You did funnog hall anyway, you say that a bunch of times. Man, I feel rusty. No, you're great, great, you're squeaky clean. So this land diving thing, it's not like these guys like climb up a couple of feet and jump onto the ground and do a summersault and then do it. Stick it with the y their hands in the air, stick the landing. It's much more intricate

than that. Primitive and dangerous, extremely dangerous. So it bears a striking resemblance to bungee jumping. And the reason why is because the guy who invented bungee jumping, Australian named A. J. Hackett, went to Pentecost Island at some point in the eighties, saw this stuff and said, oh, I could totally do something like that, but with an elastic band. Yeah, that's a big difference between bungee and land diving. Yeah, he

didn't invent it, but he popularized it. Who invented bungee jumping? I didn't get a name, but I saw that the first, um, the first bungee jumping that anyone knows about, was in England. Oh yeah, Are you sure it wasn't this cat because he traveled the world bungee jumping. Yeah. Ninety nine. The UK based Dangerous Sports Club leapt off the suspension bridge in San Francisco, though I think Clifton suspension Bridge near Bristol. No,

that's San Francisco. Everybody goes the famous Clifton suspension Bridge in Marin County. This is uh, that's the Golden gate Bridge, I believe. Oh yeah, uh. And I think they say Marinus um. Yeah. I don't think they didn't give a name, but it said uh. And this is from a Time magazine article. Because what's going on is um or. At least a few years ago, people and the tribes people were trying to get some money out of A. J.

Hackett and his partner. They're basically like, wait a minute, you copied our age old and I looked up ancient by the way, UH said, it's uh belonging to the very descent past and no longer in existence. Oh well, then ancient wouldn't work in this case because there's still land diving in Vanuatu. But it can also just mean like really old, like that ancient jacket you're wearing. I'm not wearing the ancient underwear you're wearing. This is very

new from last quarter your underwear. Yeah, okay, good, do you buy your underwear quarterly? Do the texas by the underwear? I gotta do that still. Um So, anyway, he didn't invent it, but uh, and I might as well go ahead and finish that little story about them trying to get money. Apparently it's probably not going to happen. I couldn't see any recent It's always one of the most frustrating things when you see something from a few years

ago and can't find a follow up. But from what I gathered, they're gonna have a really hard time getting money out of them because there's no legal protection afforded to traditional rituals in or outside of Vanuatu. Is what experts say, Like, basically, you can't you can't say this tribal ritual like we own it, right, so Westerners just feel free to copy it and explore it. Our western

intellectual property laws don't apply to your tribal customs. All right, Since we were long winded at first, why don't we take a break, and then we'll get into exactly what goes on with these dives. All right? Josh, you said it wasn't a few feet off the ground. It's more like just under a hundred feet where these towers are built. The towers are are not, you know, um made of rebar and uh what do they call the scaffolding. It's made of stuff there in in the in the jungle.

It's made of vines, and it's made of wood, and they build a new one each year during uh well, I call it yam season, before the yam harvest, because yam time, I call it the blood lighting. But it is cut open the earth and remove her yams from her breast. What in the world are you talking about yam time? I don't get it. We're talking about the same thing, talking differently, all right. Is what you said a real thing? No, it's very maccab I know where I yam time. Yam time, So it's during m season

or just before yam harvest. And that's one of the reasons, uh, they take part in this ritual is to ensure a bountiful yam harvest. I get the feeling it's yams are a pretty big deal for them. If you're doing this to ensure a bountiful yam harvest. Yes, yes, yams are very important. And it's also um a good time to do it because that is when the vines are most full of sap and less likely to be brittle and break, which is not what you want. And these are the

linear vines, right, yes, so the the linear vines. It's extremely important what kind of linea vines that you select because at any point in the linear vine that you select, if it's dry, it can snap. And it's it's tied to somebody's ankle and they're jumping off at about forty five up to thirty meters or almost a hundred feet. Yeah, you want to make sure that vine is not going to snap. Yeah. So, if we haven't explicitly said it,

they jump as if they're bungee jumping. But there is I mean there's some elasticity because I watched it, but it's not like bungee cords. They're not rubber bands. Um. It's generally the ideas you want to fold your arms over your chest, make the leap, and then come as close to the ground as you can without uh having a hard impact. But you ideally do want to touch

the ground with your shoulders right so barely. You also, as you're coming up towards the ground, you want to tuck your head into your chest so that what's hitting the ground is that like the tops of your shoulders basically. And and a really really important point that just kind of gets glossed over in this article is that they till the ground below the platform. It's also a little slopey,

which helps, I think, right, so that it's cushion. Because when you watch this stuff, people hit the ground own really hard. A lot, yeah, a lot. And as a matter of fact, one guy died in ninety four and Queen Elizabeth happened to be there. He didn't die in front of her. He died later of his injuries. But um, one of the jumpers while Queen Elizabeth was sitting there watching, UM,

he did die. And it turns out that a lot of people hit the ground, but this guy was the only person in recent memory that anybody alive could remember, um actually died. And I think it's mainly because they till that ground so much. Yeah, there was one fatality in two thousand six. But um, I mean, considering what they're doing, that's a pretty good track record here in modern times, that's not too bad. So where all this come from? Chuck? Well, uh, years ago that Well, here's

the legend. And of course this smacks of legend um in every way, but you never know, might have been had some truth to it early on. So many legends too, including that Tom Cruise movie legend which one was, Oh that was the fantasy movie. Yes, and I think I saw it, but not my favorite. No, I never saw it. Okay, don't bother. I always used to confuse it with Labyrinth. Yeah, that was better. It was featuring David Bowie, the late

great David Bowie. Al Right, here's the legend, um. There was a woman named tom Alee t A. M. A. L. I E. Not Tomali. It's the way do you go, Tomi Lee. She was a woman in the village. Tomallee was the man. I thought Tomallee was a woman. No, Tomallee was her husband. I believe. All right, so it's the husband. Yeah, maybe she was amily Emiline Tomiie who had been the cutest couple who knew they were going to get married on Pentecost Island. So she apparently Tomilee

was abusive. Well, she she had had an affair and he found out about it and it was in the process of a abusing her. And see I also read this is why it's a legend because there are many versions. But I read he was forcing himself on her sexually and she was like the sat happen anymore, Tommie. Either way, it's abuse. He's abusing her. Uh, And so she flees, climbs up to a tall tree. He climbs up after her, uh,

intent on you know, continuing his his abusive behaviors. She I guess has enough time to tie these vines around her ankles and jumps fast and he says, I'm jumping after you too, Okay again legend Either out of he thinks that she just jumped to her death and he's sad, so he's committing suicide. I don't buy that one. He's lunging at her and missus I could buy that one more. Or he's like I'm I'm jumping after you because I'm

Tomilee and I'm dumb. Maybe so one of those, but at any rate, as legend goes, beat you up on the way down. As legend goes, she actually survived the jump thanks to the vines on her ankles. He did not. Um, so did she craft this ahead of time? I say, there's a lot easier ways to kill your husband than this. Weird Yeah, you know, like maybe he'll follow me up the tree then jump after me. Well, if you're a thrill seeker, though, this is what you're gonna come up with.

She might have been. Uh. And then this is where it also goes off into different directions. Um. Some people say that she continued that jump every year. Uh. And

then men eventually said no, we're doing the jumping. And then some say no men immediately started jumping and said women can't jump, right, And the ladder of those two legends, um is that men, we're like, well, we need to start practicing in case somebody else this ever happens to me, because clearly this is going to be a trend that starts. And you women, you're not allowed to practice, only us,

That's right. And so the husbands would get up on the platform and they would basically make a speech about their wife's behavior and then make the jump. And the coffee she makes is terrible, So I'm gonna jump. Watch this, you know. The wife is just down there, like I hate the stupid tradition. No, I don't think so they embrace it now. Well, I mean when the husband's sitting there, gripe wife, anybody about I'm sure some pitdling stuff. It's just just jump. You don't have to add that part.

But what has remained true today is that women are not permitted to jump. Um. It's only men. And aside for him one uh white dude in the nineties seventies, no outsider has ever been allowed to jump. No cat cat Mueller. Cal was the cal I thought was Cat cal Mueller. Yeah. Ended up like living with the pentecost islanders um for at least seven months, if not longer. I think over the course of a couple of years.

But the last stint was seven straight months. And he they speak a version of Pidgeon English um, and he like learned to speak it as well, and he gave a really like heartfelt speech from the platform when they finally led him, and it was apparently, by all accounts, are very touching, well not all accounts, by cal Mueller's account, very touching experience. Well, and you know, because he said in his article land Diving with the pentecost Islanders that

was a very touching experience. I'm sure he did. Okay, I did read uh the article. Actually that's pretty good. He wasna Geo magazine. So he was the first two or only outsider to jump. It's it's actually so it's because it's so dangerous. It's it's forbidden. But they they they've enshrined it in a taboo. It's like a cultural taboo for a non van oat tour to jump, to

do the knock. Yeah, and I'm sure there have been plenty of bungee bros really trying to get in there, but they by all accounts have been rebuffed every time. They have some three eleven they can play while a jump. But any way, cal Mueller wasn't the he was the only one to jump. He wasn't the first outsider to see this. There were a lot of early witnesses, obviously the Pentecostals who first came to the island as missionaries. It didn't occur to me. That's why the island was

called that. Sure, like a dummy. I just gloss right over that. Um, you're not a dummy, man. I hate it when obvious things don't occur to me, though. It's it's just perspective, like it could have been called Christian Now island. What a weird name? Christian now, what's what the exclamation? But earlier than that, earlier than cal Mueller, there was some Uh there was an adventurer couple named um Irving and Electra Johnson, and they just traveled the

world at a time when traveling the world was very difficult. Uh, well, the fifties, and they were correspondents for National Geographic for a while, and in nineteen fifty three they finally got to see it. They had a friend on Pentecost Island, probably a missionary, who was saying, like, you gotta see this, man, it's crazy. Yeah, I'll see if I can arrange it. And they became some of the first outsiders to ever

write about it. Well, and missionaries actually um talk to them and well it says they banned the practice in the late nineteenth century. But after World War Two, apparently there was a big revival in Vanuatu's independence and like reclaiming their traditions and so that's when it started coming back into favor. And um also because they realized, and we'll get to this, that the gams had shrunk in size. Maybe also because they could make some dough from from

people who wanted to travel and watch this. Yeah. Because um, we mentioned Queen Elizabeth has seen this. She wasn't the it didn't go uh the Johnson's cal Mueller Queen Elizabeth. It became like a pretty big tourist attraction and still is today. Um. And as a matter of fact, the original nogal took place once one day out of the year, and as tourists started to um and tourist dollars started to come with them, the pentecost Islanders said, we'll do

this more than once a year. How about that? Yeah, I think the the one is their official special ceremony. But then I think between what April and June they do it weekly. Yeah, like a matinee on Saturday's even Yeah, for the kiddies, the rest of them get a little blue. So let's take a break and then we'll describe the actual not all ceremony huh. All right, so chuck, yes, uh, not all begins with a. I think they kind of select a trusted elder of the tribe and say, this

is your year. You're the Grand Marshal of Nargnog. Hall Uh. Here's your hat with the feather in the front. Do some good stuff. Here's your orange soda. And the elder said, I've been waiting for this my whole life. I'm gonna do the best. Not all ever, it's going to be an under the sea theme. No, okay, well, everything but the last part, right, okay. So the elder is in charge of overseeing the construction of the platform, which is terrifying.

These platforms are terrifying. Yeah, I mean just when you look at these, climbing up to the top of that to me is too much, let alone jumping off right. I'm sure they're really good at it though, and they very sturdy. Right. So, over the course of a few weeks they construct these platforms again up to like thirty meters in height, which is about a hundred feet UM, and they'll have platforms of varying levels for people of

varying levels of courage UM. And the platforms are basically like they select a strong, tall tree and that serves as like the spine of the platform, and then they use wood and vines to kind of create the platforms are varying height along the tree, right, that's right. And so that's kind of phase one, the construction phase. And then finally the day of knock Hall comes and the night before they jump, all the people who are going to jump sleep out at the foot of the platform. Sex. Yeah,

that's a big superstation. Have sex of the night before. They say that it'll throw off your jump. Sure. Uh. And actually the guy who jumped and died in front of Queen Elizabeth, Uh, he had a lucky charm on him. I thought you're about to say he had sex with Queen Elizabeth, Right, that's you. And so that's another table. No sex with Queen Elizabeth. Um, he had a lucky

charm on him. So now lucky charms are considered bad luck. Um, so there's some there's some superstitions considering the whole thing or surrounding the whole thing. Um. But the the night before they will sleep out in front of the platform, and then when they wake up, they just immediately start drumming and like cooking and like it's a huge party, like the moment they wake up. And that same elder that that supervises the construction is also the man who

picks out all the vines for all the jumpers. And it says right here in the article there's there's no maths involved. Um he Basically it said works from experience and trial and error in selecting the appropriate length of vine. Um. So hopefully you apprentice as an elder. Sure you know, yeah, and it's not just like I've never done this before, but let's see what happens. Yeah, but like I said, only in the ninety four and two thousand six deaths

in modern times, so they're doing it right. They are doing it right. I'm sure there are injuries though, broken shoulders and and broken arms and spleen bursts is a big problem. Oh the old, the old spleen versus, especially if the vine is too short and you slam into the platform. Yeah, like that's what you would think, is, no, just make it super short. But because it's not a bungee, you jump out and you swing right back into that thing.

So you like, there is a tremendous amount of skill and look in selecting the vine length because I mean you have to take into account, well, what platform are you jumping from? How long are you? Or tall is another way to put it. Um. And again the the you want to have a vine that's very supple, has a lot of sap and no dry spot in it, because a vine is only as strong as its weakest

dry spot. That's the old thing. Uh So the first jumper gets up there, and every jumper to follow um still traditionally will say a few words um at the top. That could be his last words, you never know. Um. And it ranges from let me get a few things off my chest here, um, clear up a couple of like, you know, issues I've had with people, maybe any outstanding

beefs once stolely yam. Maybe it's really kind of up to them from some people mind really like some people really ham it up up there because the crowd is just en wrapped by you. Is your moment, it's a big moment like that. You can have them eating out of your hands. Some people do. Some people sing a song, they're like the whitey really loves this part, so let me put on a good show. Or they tell jokes or something like that. Yeah. Um, And when I say Whitey.

I mean, like, you know, people like Whitey Ford, people that pay four dollars after spending thousands to travel here to witness this ancient custom. Well I'm not ancient custom. Yeah. I don't think clearing that up's gonna help. I think you're still going to get a ton of emails for that one. You know, if someone white writes in and takes a task with me saying whitey, then come on

bring it, That's what I say. Uh So when they make the jump, um, the crowd is silent initially right before the leap, and then much rejoicing right afterwards, and it's all you know, it's over in a second, especially if the person is okay. There's a lot of rejoicing right after. But I guess everybody rushes over and like unties the vines and they're like, get okay, suck it out.

Is a salt tablet uh So we did mention the tourism, and I think I just dropped the three fifty references, and that's just for the actual let me pay to witness this cost a lot more to to get there. Oh yeah, and you know, if you can find a three fifty dollar package to get you from your house in the United States to Vanawat to you take that package now because you have to fly in by seaplane. They do they have an airport, right that I know of. I wonder where you would fly into to get to

vanawa to surely there's an international airport in Vanawatt. It's South Pacific, right, Yeah, yeah, who knows. I'm sure they did the Survivor show there, so I'm sure there's just they constructed an airport. But then they're also like nothing but sour grapes because they tore it down right after. They're like, well, we don't need this anymore. Did you ever watch that show? I saw like the first season. I think I did too. I think it's still going miraculous?

Is it really? Maybe? Maybe not? But I know it went on far longer then I believed it did. I would guess what maybe in the seventeen seventeen seasons, twenty season something like that. Crazy. So, uh, we also should mention the garb women on the island or in their traditional grass skirts and uh, not much of anything else. And the men where this is during nogal typically they dress like in western clothing. Yeah, it's during nogal. It's like yet another nod to like this, this is our tradition,

this is our customs. So they were like the you know, ninety nineties Bulls NBA champion T shirt always picture stuff like that there. Uh yeah, there is I think a Planet Money series or something like that about how our clothes end up elsewhere in the world. Uh. So yeah, every Saturday, the women are like seeing next week bra and top and everything. Uh. And the men, um say, ceo clothing. Uh, and let me just get out my peanut sheath which I keep in the pocket of my levies.

And that's all they're wearing. Um, they do wear. Um, some of them wear like boars tusks around their neck and things like that. And they're anointed with oil, coconut oil, and but um, aside from that, they're they're not wearing mini clothes. It's pretty neat, man, the whole thing it is. And um, I think we didn't mention it's a twofold purpose.

These days. Not only are they ensuring the yam harvest, but young boys after they are circumcised at seven or eight years old can participate as a way of like showing their transcendence into manhood, right, and they'll typically jump from a lower platform and work their way up the kid pool, but their mom's watch and apparently they hold like some sort of like item from their childhood, like

their binkie or something like that. Then after their sun lands they they throw it away because he's not like, he's not a boy anymore, he's a man. A neat ritual. It is very neat, except for the eight year old getting circumcised part. Yeah. And also it said that sometimes these boys are just trying to impress a girl, you know, like look at me jumping from the fifteen foot platform, which is adorable. It is pretty cute. Um. And one other thing I want to say, Chuck, I thought was

pretty neat. There have been plenty of documentary companies that have been allowed on the island to film, and you know, it's become like a big thing. Um. But the government of Vanuatu said, you know what, this is getting to commercialized. So you guys can keep coming and see it tourists, but um, we're not going to let on the way out right. Well, we're not gonna let you guys film this anymore because we don't want to. We don't want to overexploit it. Yeah, I think it was that two

thousand six, the moratorium on filming. I thought that was very neat. Yeah, I think it's just I mean, you get caught up in this modern world as uh Americans, and it's just amazing to think that there are still places in the world where it's you know, unspoiled to a certain degree. Yeah, although they do this in Iowa too. Do you like that? That was great? Uh? If you want to know more about um land diving, you can type the word those words. It's two words into the

search bar how stiffords dot com. Since I said search bar, time for listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this uh Timber episode one of my favorites of recent memory. Somehow, are you out of your mind? I thought it was great. You didn't like it? No, No, it's just so much you say that after every episode. No, this one in particular, I was like, oh, what do you think it was? The trickle of blood came out of my ear. It was so much glory. Well, we heard from the timber

industry they loved it. Oh yeah, the paper industry or the timber industry. Timber guys lumberjacks. I'm guessing the paper industry didn't like that one. Maybe not. Hey, guys, I'm a doctoral student in environmental economics and Oregon, and I'm close to the topic of forest both personally and academically. Perhaps it's just a topic for another podcast. But one oversight and the timber discussion, was that of non timber forest products in t FPS like mushrooms, berries, and roots, like,

they're not a product. I wouldn't have thought of any of those things as timber product. Yeah, that's no, it's non timber. Oh, non timber forest products. Yes, well yeah, woodchuck stands. These are a major source of income and subsistence, Uh. Subsistence excuse me, uh in many lower income countries and communities,

a valuable driver tourism, and are often culturally important as well. Also, wild mushroom and berry harvest here and a civic Northwest can have high yields, and in some instance is may have a higher economic value than that of the harvested timber on any given plot. Sure uh, find some truffles. Uh. These NTFP stocks, however, usually depend on the tree the tree stand remaining in place, or at least not being completely depleted. Some species even depend on forest fires or

rotting trees. Researchers just haven't spent a lot of time on the economics surrounding this topic yet, I guess because they're you know, they're all just like timber, timber, timber, that's all the forest is exactly. This guy's got some he's got he can see the forest from the trees exactly, or the vice versa. Also, just to chime in on developed versus non industrialized semantics, I prefer to use the

term low or lower income country. I feel like a lot of the terms like underdeveloped and developing in particular, involve a lot of value judgments about the people and discussions on the topic of development. UH of development. People also regularly get confused about what is meant by developer developing is develop to measure of capital accumulation, median income,

poverty levels, happiness. Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of people UH develop development economics who would disagree with me in my terminology, but that's what I like to use. The dude raises a really good point. It's virtually impossible, though, to compare the economies of two different countries and not be like, oh, this one's better, that one's better, and

it's almost all through this western lens. They got more money, they have more access to handy technology, and there's a lot of stuff that's not taken into account where no, that's not necessarily true. I like this guy's outlook. Well, I mean, at least it's good that we've gone from

you know, savages to third world to developing two. I mean, he knows what the next phrase will be, but well, you know, third world was originally used to describe a country that wasn't aligned with the US or the USSR. It was like a non non It was a neutral country during the Cold War. It didn't have an economic association. Horror military sissies. Right, So pretty interesting, great email, Michael, So we're real, Michael, thank you. I think I'm gonna

teach Momo to root out truffles. You got a billion dollar dog on your hand, then i'd be wonderful billion and he trouffles her look wonderful to eat. I'm gonna teach her to root out both kinds of truffles, lint and the mushrooms. What are lint? Trump the chocolate? That would be wonderful? Be careful though she should eat chocolate. No, well, that's part of the thing. Like, if you teach a pig to root out truffles, one of the first things you have to teach him is not to eat the

truffles themselves. I'm sure. Or did like you need to like put a pig in a head headlock really quick. Okay, so oh yeah. If you want to get in touch with us, like Michael did, you can tweak to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

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