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In Pictures: The ‘sea gypsies’ of Myanmar

Nomads living on the waters off of southern Myanmar find their lifestyle threatened by overfishing and illegal trawling.

The Moken people, a nomadic ethnic minority also known as "sea gypsies", live on the waters off Myanmar(***)s Mergui Archipelago. Today, there are around 2,000 members who continue to live the nomadic lifestyle, down from 12,000 a decade ago.

By Dave Tacon

Published On 17 May 2014

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Mergui, Myanmar – The Mergui Archipelago, which consists of more than 800 mostly uninhabited islands scattered off the coast of southern Myanmar, is home to the Moken people. This ethnic minority is thought to have left southern China around 4,000 years ago. They roamed the sea as far south as Malaysia before separating as a distinct cultural group in the late 1600s.

Sometimes referred to as “sea gypsies” – a broad term used to describe several cultures in Southeast Asia – the Moken have traditionally led a nomadic life and survived on what they can forage from the sea. Families live in a 10-metre-long “mother boat” known as kabang, behind which several small dugout canoes are towed.
 
Ten years ago, the Moken numbered 12,000 people. But today, the numbers of Moken living the nomadic life are thought to have declined to only about 2,000 due to overfishing, illegal trawling and blast fishing.
 
Hla Dal, a Moken in his early 20s, explains that he and his family abandoned their nomadic life two years ago. “Before we could catch a lot of squid and fill a basket with 20kg in a day. Now we can only manage 3kg in a day … We couldn’t afford to maintain our mother boat. It’s easier to fish from the village.”
 
The Mergui Archipelago receives few tourists, and was only opened to foreigners in 1996. Last year, 12 licenses to develop resorts were granted for the area, including one on Kyun Philar, which is scheduled to open in 2016. This, combined with commercial fishing, represents perhaps the biggest threat to the Moken way of life. 
A passenger disembarks from the bow of a longtail boat at a jetty near the town of Kawthaung near the Mergui Archipelago - an isolated group of more than 800 islands that see very little tourism.
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A Burmese fisherman who has married a into a Moken family prepares sea snails for dinner.
A Moken man who lives with his wife, daughter, her husband and their two children sits on a small, 10-metre-long wooden ship called the "the mother boat" that acts as their home.
Moken children travel in a kabang, a small dugout canoe.
Threats to the Moken way of life include overfishing and blast fishing, which has devastated the area(***)s coral reefs.
The Moken sustain themselves with small-scale fishing.
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A Burmese fisherman documents the day(***)s catch with pen and paper on the deck of a fishing boat.
A Burmese fisherman works on the bow of a fishing boat.
Fishermen load their catch into drums of ice so the fish remain fresh when they land.
Fish hang out to dry on the deck of a Burmese fishing boat anchored off the island of Kyun Philar.
Du Tha Nuc, who lives on the shore of the island of Kyun Philar, told Al Jazeera that his family ended their traditional nomadic way of life seven years ago because it became too difficult to catch fish and too expensive to maintain their "mother boat".