Alec Hughes

Another mass fish kill has occurred, this time in Solomon Islands' western province, with villagers saying hundreds of dead fish have washed ashore near the Dekosu Conservation Area on Vanganu Island, while similar events have been reported in parts of Papua New Guinea and the El Nino, where the system has been cited as a factor.

In the Solomons, the reasons are not so clear right now, and Country Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Alec Hughes, says further investigations are needed to establish exactly how the fish came to die.

The Dokoso Marine Conservation Area has experienced fish kills in the past a couple of times that I'm aware of and in those situations we have thought that it was a result of after a prolonged period with no rain then there was a downpour which might have washed some chemicals maybe from logging operations within the area and the neighboring Dokoso Conservation Area that might have had an impact on fish kill or producing the fish kill and also it might be something more like naturally um caused by just the dry spell and some vegetation inland or bacteria that proliferated during the dry spell which then got washed into the water when they had a downpour so i'm not sure if the docoso area has actually experienced a downpour recently after the prolonged spell, but in the past that's what we were thinking might have caused the fish kills.

As we speak, has there been any rain or there's just been no rain because some say that due to the long dry spell caused by El Nino?

There is logging or has been some logging activities in the recent past neighboring the Dokosa Conservation Area.

So, you know, there is that possibility that we have some contaminants in the water that could have caused this impact.

Alec Hughes, Country Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Solomon Islands.

He was speaking to Caroline Tireman.