Plastic pollution threatens Lake Malawi’s unique fish

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Published Dec 29, 2025

Lake Malawi, one of Africa’s most important freshwater ecosystems and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is under growing threat from plastic pollution — endangering both its extraordinary biodiversity and the communities that depend on it.

Home to more than a thousand species of cichlid fish found nowhere else on Earth, the lake is considered by UNESCO to be as important to evolutionary science as the Galapagos Islands. But researchers and conservationists warn that plastic waste accumulating on the lakebed is disrupting fish breeding, contaminating the food chain and tarnishing the lake’s appeal to tourists.