15 Species Of Fish Washing Up Dead In Papua New Guinea, Including 1,000s Of Eyeless Herring; Residents Sickened By Water

It started in December, when dead fish began washing ashore New Ireland—a mountainous island in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland Province, flanked by the Pacific Ocean and the Bismarck Sea. At first, just a few fish scattered the beaches—mostly small bluestripe herring, which school in shallow tropical waters. Within a few weeks, they were landing in droves.

By January, reports of the die-offs mounted across several coastal communities settled along the island’s east coast. Some residents reported they’d also developed severe rashes after coming into contact with seawater. As alarm spread, John Aini—founder of Ailan Awareness, a local Indigenous-led marine conservation non-government organization—set out with his team to investigate by visiting some of the affected villages. What he saw was worse than he could have imagined. “Hundreds and hundreds of fish littered the beach,” said the elder activist in his 60s. Most had no eyes, he said. “I’ve never witnessed anything like it in my entire life.”

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In New Ireland, such coastal ecosystems are never just resources, said environmental anthropologist Paige West, an endowed chair in anthropology at Columbia University and Barnard College who has worked with coastal communities in Papua New Guinea for decades. “It is the basis of livelihood, kinship, memory and everyday life. That is what makes this crisis so painful,” she said. “What is being threatened here is not only marine life, but the social and material worlds that people have built in relation to the ocean over generations.”

For many residents, Marigu said the ocean is a place people go to heal. Now, it’s making them sick. At least 750 people have reported experiencing severe skin irritation or other illnesses after contact with the sea, according to community surveys the Ailan Awareness team conducted. One 12-year-old boy, who Marigu interviewed and photographed, jumped into the ocean to cool off after mowing a lawn. Soon after exiting the water, Marigu said the boy told her his face began swelling so badly that one eye closed. Itchy blisters formed around it. “It felt like how cooking oil burns your skin,” Marigu said the boy told her.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032026/papua-new-guinea-mass-marine-die-off-public-health/