“I want to show other Asia Pacific islands, there are ways of using the forest wisely, rather than using it once and destroying it so we’re left with nothing.”

Sep’s conviction is strong and it’s this quality that saw him break the bounds of tradition and a childhood he describes as an ordeal, marred by a sense of abandonment and having to fight for himself from an early age.

Born the 15th and final child of the Catfish clan’s Chief, Galeva Sep lost his father when he was 6 months old.

Attending school at Pagoa, an island east of Kubut, Sep, then 10, and his 12-year-old brother, Murray, had to hunt and cook for themselves. When Murray gave up school, Sep struggled.

“No-one really wanted to look after me,” he recalls. “I would live in a family for a while but the kids would bully me.”

Unsuccessful in applying for further education after completing grade 10 at Kiunga, in 1982 Sep returned to Kubut.

“My family members tried to degrade me. They said I was a loser. And they wanted me to get married young. I didn’t even have a beard. So I started to go against the family. I decided I shouldn’t sit down and let my brother abuse me.”

After working in a local store to save enough money to get away, Sep enrolled in the Kiunga Vocational School (KVS) to study mechanics. He proved so successful that by half-way through the year he was managing the workshop, and by the end of the year he was supervising second year students.

It was at KVS that his future vocation as an activist and fighter for human rights came to the fore. He began to stand up for other students, particularly the poor students, and lead the first ever strike at KVS when the administration threatened not to honour its agreement to supply students with tools from money earned during the year. Needless to say, the students won.

Almost as a joke, Sep sat for an entrance exam to the police force, and to his surprise, was recruited. Again, against his family’s wishes he headed off to Port Moresby to begin his training in January 1987. He was very successful and over his 14-year career in the force, worked his way up to become a forensic detective.

With his sense of justice, he relished his task of chasing criminals – especially “hard criminals, like the rapists and murderers”, however over time he began to realise that things weren’t what they seemed.

“They were ordinary PNGs. They didn’t have enough money. I realised the rich people were using us to cover their backs, to cover corruption.”

At the same time, Sep heard about the Kiunga-Aiambak road project running through his land and the abuses occurring there.

“What really affected me was a report that police forced one old landowner to suck a dog’s penis when he tried to protect his land. It was disgusting. I felt that this is our country, why are we treated as second-class citizens in the land that belongs to us.

“My people understood it was wrong, but they had no guts because they were afraid of police. It’s very difficult if you don’t have money or understand the outside world.”

“I thought, I'm out here in the city, and my people back at home are suffering. I need to do something, to take up the issue.”

Sep began working with NGOs in Port Moresby and by 2001, resigned from the force returning in 2002 to live at Kubut with his wife Fransisca and their sons.

That year, he stood for the National party, contesting the Middle Fly seat in the country’s parliamentary elections, but lost. Instead he continued working with the local people and NGOs to push the logging companies out.

One of Sep’s big motivations now is to earn enough money through eco-forestry to give his four boys a good education. Pulling them out of schools in Port Moresby is, he feels, the biggest sacrifice he made in returning to the Lake.

“The education system here is very poor,” said Sep. “I've made a very big sacrifice for my kids. I'm trying to do my best to repay for what I've done.

“Even if they are not going to do well in high school, I will do everything I can to sponsor them to go to institutions.”

One of his other wishes for his children is that they, too, are at home in different environments. “It’s good to mix the way of life. I want my children to be multipurpose and fit in with any life – in the jungle or city. They are independent; they can do it, no matter what happens. That's the way I want to teach my children.”

Standing up to Concord Pacific and the corruption which lies behind the logging industry in PNG has not been without its threats and losses.

When talking of being able to take care of his son’s educational needs in the future, Sep added “But that depends on how long I'm going to live; whether I die on the way.”

This is no idle remark. Sep’s life was threatened when he was still in the force for his strong stance against logging companies, and he has lost three relatives since the fight began in 2002.

“My uncle, Karea Alot, my brother Sep Sep and my nephew Manale Bariga. We lost them on the way. We started together, they were right behind me.”

Sep believes their deaths, particularly that of his uncle, nicknamed the ‘computer’ because of his unerring memory of clan geneology, were a result of their fighting against the Aiambak-Kiungai Road Project.

He also believes that they were made ill through black magic – still widely practised and feared around the Lake.