SAMBAVA, Madagascar — Bright moonlight reflected off broad banana leaves, but it was still hard to see the blue twine laced through the undergrowth, a tripwire meant to send the unwary tumbling to the ground.
“This is the way the thieves come,” said the vanilla farmer, lowering his voice and sweeping his flashlight beam over a ditch.
Each night the farmer, Ninot Oclin, 33, patrols his land in the foothills of a volcano in Madagascar, barefoot, with a bolt-action rifle slung over his shoulder. If he hears someone fall, he knows yet another bandit is trying to steal his lucrative crop of ripening vanilla.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: New York Times
