I am standing up and balancing (quite well, I might add!) in a twenty foot long dug-out canoe, coasting through the lilypads and singing softly to myself and the forest. I seem to have finally got the knack for these precarious things; even my steering is remaining on coarse for once. Maybe it's the moon?

My thoughts turn to the trees. I recall a conversation I had earlier with some members of the Catfish clan. They were telling me about the Kiunga Aiambak road block. This was one of the logging contracts the landowners managed to stop.

Unfortunately, by the time they won the fight, the area had already suffered from the worst illegal deforestation in the country. By law, when building a new road, you can clear up to one hundred meters of forest on both sides, but in this case they logged as much as twenty kilometres in many places, and didn't think twice about it.

Thank goodness it was stopped before even more of this awesome jungle was destroyed and stolen from the rightful owners.

You can still see some bulldozer tracks in the mud. It gives me the chills. Still, it's hard to dwell on these dark things with such a moon overhead. I think I'll head back towards the laughter of the wonderful folks doing something to protect this “paradise”.