The Last of the Sea Nomads (36 Pics)

The Bajau Laut are some of the last true marine nomads. An ethnic group of Malay origin, they have for centuries lived out their lives almost entirely at sea, plying a tract of ocean between Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
This is a collection of traditional, handmade Bajau lepa lepa boats off the coast of Pulau Bangko.



















Below Pak Lapoli demonstrates using cyanide to catch grouper for the live reef fish trade.

However, the use of dynamite and cyanide is still leaving Bajau fishermen maimed and killed. It is also destroying the world’s epicentre of coral diversity at a rate which is verging on irreversible.


Ibu Hanisa, pictured below, lost her hands and the sight in one eye when a homemade fertiliser bomb went off in her house.











BY James Morgan