We headed out to one edge of the boundary, and took a base line through the forest. The leading crew hacked a path through with machetes, and the foresters followed, marking every 20 metre point and recording tree sizes and species in a corridor along the base line.

Though shaded by the vast canopy above, it is hot and humid and the bush exudes a rich fecundity. The forest floor is thick with leaf fall, littered bronze, copper, red, and the brown of rotting leaf. There's such a thickness of trees and creepers, vines and rattan. And mud. We pass through creeks, squelchy clay-like mud and over fallen logs. And there's the constant buzz of insects, cicadas and birdcalls – the enduring sounds of this raw and pulsing forest.

I'm aware that I'm witnessing a small part of a long process, as the landowners work to improve their lives and sustain their traditional way of life. Making a move to ecoforestry that will allow them to develop their communities, buy basic things, and continue to live the way they've lived for generations – in the forest.

Almost everything here that shelters us and nourishes us has come from the forest – or the lake. Much of it’s supplied by our hosts, the local catfish clan of the Kuni tribe.

We are here in one of the most remote parts of Papua New Guinea at their invitation.

I flew in to Boboa, Lake Murray's airstrip, last Saturday – a 7-hour flight. While only 500km as the crow flies, there were six stops. (Much of PNG is only accessible by airplane, and our Airlines PNG weekly flight is the main service through these remote villages.)

We crossed vast areas of watery land: broad brown rivers that criss-cross, huge ox bow lakes, and the wet lands of the lower Fly River, with its mangrove swamps and open savannah.

Once in Boboa, Sep Galeva, the local leader, Sam Moko, the Greenpeace forest campaigner, as well as a large number of the villagers greeted us.

From Boboa, it was an hours’ boat ride south down the lake to the GFRS. The boat is an open dinghy about 4m long with a 75 hp outboard. It takes us across open lake and then a short cut through swamps and trees, which we poled through rather than motored.

The GFRS camp is in an area called Kewe. It's been built across the water from one of the clan's hunting camps. Each day, people come to help at the camp, take us where we need to go, and bring us food. There's a steady wave of people coming and going.

Since I arrived, our main fare has been taro (a root vegetable that is a staple here), fish caught in the lake, coconuts, and bananas – the small sweet bananas and the larger plantains that we cook. Then there are garden vegetables like beans, or aibica (a popular greens eaten here), pumpkin, all supplemented by rice and tinned mackerel. We cook on the open fire under the shelter of the structure. The fish is good; saratoga, barramundi or a fish they call big eye.

Other than a few nails, our camp has been built in the traditional way – timber poles, bamboo, rattan – everything from the bush nearby. The main structure is nearly 25 m long and about five metres wide, with an 18m platform on which we sleep. The roof is made of sago palm leaves, the platform floor of bark laid across bamboo poles. It's all bound together with the strong rattan, or strong cane.

What aren’t locally sourced are our capacious mosquito nets!

At first sleeping on the platform was strange. When one of us turns or moves or walks across the platform, the whole floor sways and shudders. Now I don't notice.

Everyday there are moderations to the camp, a new kitchen table for all the utensils out under a large tarp, a jetty to wash and swim from, or log pathways to lift us out of the mud. Yesterday the HF radio was connected.

It's dark here now. I can hear the talk from the campfire, in the bush cicadas and out across the lake, frogs croaking. I will go around the fire to eat, and hear the latest plan for tomorrow. A plan that may change depending on the weather, depending on ....