Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that, for the Gogodala of PNG, jumping fish, rice and sago are central to not only discussions of ecological risk and environmental transformation but also anxiety about the potential appropriation of local elements of this environment and thereby transformation of their village-based lifestyle

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores understandings of ecological risk and environmental transformation among the Gogodala of Western Province, PNG, through an analysis of local discussions about two events that occurred in the 1990s. The first was the drought of 1997, which resulted in a series of devastating fires that swept through the Province and wiped out several large stands of sago palms. Sago is the staple of village-based Gogodala and the destruction of such important sources of sago poses a considerable threat to their livelihood. While in general villagers have met recent attempts by regional and national politicians to counter the paucity of sago with the cultivation and consumption of rice with little enthusiasm, there has been some concern about what such changes in diet and practice may represent. The second event was the appearance of a small hardy species of fish in the local waterways, which quickly came to dominate the traditional habitats of local fish species. Known as the 'stone' or 'jumping fish', it has become part of wider discussion about transformations of the local environment. In this dialogue, jumping fish, sago and rice have come to embody not only ecological and communal change but to represent potential attempts to appropriate indigenous connections to the local landscape that derive primarily from a daily interaction with ancestrally derived and constituted sago and certain species of fish and game.