How do elephants transport redwood?

In Laos, the "Land of a Thousand Wonders", elephants are regarded as "gods", symbolizing strength, spirit and wisdom. Nowadays, driven by huge profits, elephants are used as laborers to transport logs. Each elephant is equivalent to the work of 20 to 30 people and is called a "living crane". 

As redwood furniture gains increasing popularity among consumers and collectors, the demand for wood in the Chinese redwood furniture market is also on the rise. Due to the continuous opening of the border between China and Laos, the forests along the Mekong River have been overexploited and even illegally felled. To cut down more wood for greater profits, people drive elephants to transport wood back and forth under heavy loads for 8 to 9 hours every day, without allowing them to drink or eat throughout the day. 

When encountering huge and heavy timbers, elephants often can only move forward for about ten meters before stopping to rest, and then continue. Once the timber gets stuck among the trees in the forest, the elephant's owner will keep giving orders for the elephant to move back and forth and left and right. If the elephant is slow to react, it will be immediately beaten fiercely with axes and machetes... Now let's take a look at how the raw materials for rosewood furniture are obtained in the early stage. 

Loggers from Simao and Lincang in China felled one towering tree after another with chainsaws. 

Nearly 30,000 cubic meters of timber are cut down in the Mekong River Basin every year. 

Then it was carried down the mountain by the elephant, which had to crawl up the mountain on its knees to keep its balance. 

Elephants search for felled timber in the steep mountain forests. 

The elephant is using its head and trunk to push the log down the hill. 

Most of the time, elephants dragging logs are in mountain forests with steep terrain and thick vegetation. 

Eight hours of heavy-duty round-trip transportation of timber every day.

When an elephant goes down a steep slope, to prevent the logs behind it from sliding down and hitting itself, it will first turn and then squat with its front legs. 

It is even more difficult for elephants to climb uphill with a load. 

Because the wood is too long to turn around in the forest, elephants often have to use their heads to clear the way.

Elephants transport the wood from the mountain to the river valley, and then from the river valley to the Mekong River.

From the mountain top to the mountain ravine and then to the riverbank is the three-stage process of elephants pulling wood. 

The sandy beach and scattered rocks added great resistance to the elephants pulling the logs. 

The locals call the square holes in the wood "elephant eyes". 

Laos rosewood that was transported from the mountains to the Mekong River by elephants. ……