david korte photographs

Rivercess County, track to Gesay Judu town. The road was not passable for cars. Deep, sticky mud lines the banks of a small river through the forest.  Several rock barriers restrict the trail to motorbikes and foot traffic. We arrange to hire motorbikes for the five kilometer trek through the forest. Passing through a cathedral of bamboo sheltering a stream bed, we dismount to cross by log bridge, waiting as the bikes struggle through the muddy banks.

Several villages have carved plantations out of the forest, trailside, to grow cassava, yams and pineapples. This is slash and burn agriculture, the trees felled and cut to planks by pit saw crews, branches smoldered into charcoal or simply burned away. Possibly three seasons of crops are grown until soil becomes exhausted and the process begins again, slashing out a new portion of forest.