New Opportunities for Freshwater

A diverse mosaic

Papua New Guinea's freshwater resources are a large and diverse mosaic of rivers, lakes, hebaceous swamps, savanna swamps, woodland swamps and swamp forests.

In need of systematic inventory and monitoring system
Most wetlands in PNG are in a good ecological condition, however, the country lacks a systematic or comprehensive wetlands inventory and monitoring system. Some wetlands, such as the Fly River are already significantly impacted by mining activities and others are likely to be threatened by additional mining and logging activities. Most of lowland river and lake systems are significantly impacted ny invasive species of aquatic plants and fish.

Over-harvesting pressures
Most people in PNG live a subsistence lifestyle and wetland resources are valued highly in certain regions, such as the Transfly and Sepik. However, there are strong pressures for communities to over-harvest natural resources to obtain cash for the costs of education and health and to meet development aspirations.

WWF is currently the only NGO in the region addressing freshwater conservation at country and major catchment level, and the government has too few resources to support widespread wetland conservation and sustainable use programme.


Our Freshwater Programme
WWF PNG's Freshwater Programme is now underway with strong links to Forests, Marine and Species programmes. The island of New Guinea contains 2 freshwater Global Ecoregions - New Guinea Rivers and Streams, which covers most of the island, including Papua Province, Indonesia, and Lakes Kutubu and Sentani.

Integrated with other habitat ecoregions
These ecoregions are part of a mosaic of several other Global ercoregions, such as the Transfly, Southern New Guinea Lowland Forest, and Southern New Guinea Swamp Forests, and the Bismarck Solomon Seas. This overlay of forest, freshwater and marine ecoregions creates great potential for an integrated effort that will contribute greatly to WWF's overall One Global Programme of conservation.

The Transfly Ecoregion
The Transfly is one of the most remote and least developed areas in New Guinea. Lying between the Fly and Digul rivers, the area is a collage of important wetlands and monsoon forests. The wildlife of the Transfly includes freshwater crocodile, a range of water fowl and freshwater species, marsupials and reptiles. 410 species of bird have been recorded in the Transfly and 11% of its mammal species are endemic.

Rare and threatened Monsoon forests
Of particular concern in the Transfly region are the globally rare New Guinea monsoon forests. Monsoon forests are seasonally dry forests and is the most threatened type of forest in the tropics. The New Guinea monsoon forests are almost entirely restricted to the Translfy region and have a very different floristic composition to that of other New Guinea lowland forest types.