So, OK, I’m willing to learn: please show me good brands then.

They need to resist to mud (thick mud, the kind with a ton of suction that will keep your soles when you try and move), seawater, rocks and sand, and pretty dense vegetation.

They also need to have steel toe caps, good soles (vibram or equivalent if possible) that don’t sleep and aren’t too hard (wet stone is enough of a removed as it is), and to go higher than my ankle.

The best brand I tried so far was caterpillar, but they lasted only 3 years. That’s a far cry from “a decade or more”.