MU KOH SURIN, Thailand — Ngui slips beneath the waves, his movements effortless and precise. He’s done this thousands of times, diving deep to find fish and crustaceans hiding beneath the coral shelves of the Andaman Sea. His catch today is different. A sheet of black plastic, snagged on a rock 50 kilometers (30 miles) from mainland Thailand. Ngui is Moken, a nomadic seafaring people who once spent most of their lives at sea; all they needed could be harvested from the sea and scattered islands. But in a rapidly changing world, the Moken have been forced to adapt their way of life. Fishing restrictions, dwindling fish stocks and the rise of tourism have pushed most to settle on land, their movement and activities limited within the boundaries of the Mu Ko Surin National Park.
Determined to carve his own path, Ngui helped form the Moken Ocean Guardians in 2022. An initiative that sought to gain revenue from an unlikely source, the plastic that floats in with the tide and litters the beaches and reefs around the Surin Islands. The collected plastic is sent to Bangkok where it’s turned into material, like yarn or pellets, for manufacturing. For Ngui and other Moken, collecting plastic not only provides an essential income and protects the environment they once relied on, it also allows them to maintain their connection to the sea and pass their knowledge to the next generation.
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Banner image: Ngui, founder of Moken Ocean Guardians, diving. Image ©Thomas Cristofoletti.
Transcript
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
To put it simply, as long as there is the sea, the Moken will never starve to death.
We’d stay on this island this year, next year we move to another place, and so on.
When we were children, the boat was like our home.
We kept traveling around.
By the time we return to this island, the resources we collected earlier will have replenished themselves.
But now, we can’t do the same things anymore.
Sometimes, national parks or tourist companies restrict access, making it almost impossible for us to sustain our traditional way of living.
When we settled in this bay permanently, our lifestyle started to change.
We have to make a living here in this one place. We’re not moving anywhere anymore.
The Moken now rely on others. We’re no longer self-sufficient like before.
The Moken are like siblings with the sea. We depend on each other.
We rely on the sea, and the sea relies on us.
Tourism impacts the ecosystem more than people realize.
Some come to vacation without thinking about the damage they cause.
When the tourists leave, it is us, the Moken, who bear the consequences.
The sea provides for us, and we do our best to take care of it.
Plastic waste and pollution are everywhere now.
Fish populations are declining, and it is becoming harder to make a living.
We must find a way to balance our traditions with the modern world.
If the sea is destroyed, then our way of life disappears.
If the sea thrives, so do we.
