Paul Rosolie

Um, you know how many monkey faces I had to eat because there was no other food, like seriously.

You know, just that shot, just being alone on the boat in the river and how many days the motor didn't work.

And you sleep out there and you get rained on because you don't have any protection and you have some leaves over your face.

And then you go home and everyone's got a job and everyone's got kids and everyone's happy.

And they're like, what are you doing down there?

Trying to save the rainforest.

I'm like, sure.

And now we're at this point where, you know, I cared a whole lot for a whole long time.

We've had rises and then we've had falls and we've had wins and then we've had failures.

And the last few years we've had this rolling success of people finding out about our work and coming in and we start to go, wow, we've protected 130,000 acres.

We might actually be able to do this.

And so there's that moment in 300 where they show Leonidas and they say, even the king allows himself a moment of hope that this might be okay right before they get slaughtered.

And someone very dear to me recently said, in celebration of where we've gotten to, that if it happened in any harder of a way, it would have actually killed you.

And if it had happened in an easier way, it wouldn't have been so divine.

And that slapped me in the face because it was like, man, it has been so hard.

But look where we are.

Like you said, the loggers, our whole life on this river, when loggers come in, JJ and I would walk up to them and say, hey, what's up?

And sit down with them and have a beer or share a meal and talk to them and ask who their father was and if we know them and then hire them.

And they're friendly.

And they are, in a way, brothers, the JJ.