Fish and Fisheries of the Fly River, Papua New Guinea: Population Changes Associated with Natural and Anthropogenic Factors and Lessons to be Learned

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Species

The Fly River system in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, is the largest river, in terms of water flow, in Australasia. With a mean annual discharge of approximately 6,000 cumecs the Fly is similar in size to the Niger and Zambesi Rivers in Africa and the Danube in Europe (Welcomme, 1985). However, with a catchment area of only 76,000 km2 the Fly outranks all the world’s major rivers in terms of runoff per unit catchment area. This is due to the very high rainfall in the region, ranging from 10,000 mm per annum in the upper catchment near the mine to around 3,000 mm per annum near the coast.