We forge on, stumbling over charcoal logs, clumsily squashing seedlings beneath our boots, to the edge of the virgin forest. The trees look deceptively close, but our progress is painfully slow. All this land will produce is enough rice to feed one family. The crop will be husked by hand. Johannes gestures up the mountain to the distant clearings in the forest.
Some families have to walk for hours every day to tend their fields.
Then every year, they must move again. This is how the cycle works. Each field must be left fallow for nine years out of 10, so the jungle can grow back and the poor tropical soil be replenished. When all the land has been used, the community must move on, in a wide circular pattern through the jungle. We have many paddy fields on the mountains, but the children now go to school so there is no-one to do the work.