October 9, 2024 — Zoologist Yolarnie Amepou heard whispers about the fish frenzy when she made her first trip to the Kikori River Delta in the remote reaches of southern Papua New Guinea.
It was January 2012, and Amepou was travelling down the delta by dinghy, from village to village, as part of a research project on the vulnerable pig-nosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta). Amepou heard talk of outsiders appearing across the region offering staggering amounts of cash for swim bladders — an organ cut from some of the delta’s large fish species that helps them to control buoyancy. Consumers in Asia, particularly southern China, know this commodity as fish maw and covet it as a culinary delicacy, a traditional medicine and a symbol of prosperity.
The global maw trade has been growing rapidly over the past 25 years1, and market prices now far exceed those of similar dried seafood luxuries such as shark fin and sea cucumber, which are also prized in China. In some low- and middle-income countries where demand for maw is very high, it is sometimes called the cocaine of the seas because it is so lucrative and attracts organized crime interests.
Papua New Guinea has become the source of some of the most sought-after maw. In the years since Amepou’s first visit, she’s watched the fish-maw industry in the Kikori delta explode, “like a fisheries gold rush”. Fishers replaced their paddle canoes, lines and hooks with outboard-powered dinghies and commercial nets. The price being offered to delta fishers for dried maw from one prized species — the scaly croaker (Nibea squamosa) — has been recorded at up to US$15,615 per kilogram — potentially the highest price offered to fishers for maw in the world, according to a study by Amepou and her colleagues published earlier this year2.