Bajau Laut: Last of the Sea Nomads by James Morgan

Photojournalist and Filmmaker James Morgan captures dramatic images of Indonesia’s last known sea nomads, the Bajau Laut, and the perils they face to preserve their community and livelihood. Relying on the sea for their food and livelihood, the Bajau Laut’s have had to resort to illegal methods of fishing by making homemade fertilizer bombs and dispersing potassium cyanide around coral reefs. The destructive fishing practices have not only greatly reduced reef colonies that was once teeming with sea life, but have also claimed many lives and injuries within the community.

Another common practice among the young men is deep sea diving using nothing but a compressor pumping air through a slender tube held in their mouths. Without knowing the dangers of ascending too fast from the deep, Morgan found that it is the leading cause of unnatural death in the Bajau community. Perhaps the most eye-opening part of his series is that the problems the Bajau Laut’s face not only affects them, but also affects the rest of the world. The fishes caught with cyanide are treated with tetracycline in order to keep them alive during the exporting process to neighboring countries. So the tourist in China who paid top money for the wild grouper on their plate may just be ingesting traces of cyanide.