Dear MEL Topic Readers,
They’ve sailed across Southeast Asia for centuries. Now, these sea nomads are being forced to live on land
Semporna is a coastal town located near the top of the Coral Triangle in Malaysia, a 5.7 million square kilometer area of extraordinary marine biodiversity. There, Bajau Laut, indigenous seafaring people have lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle on the ocean for centuries. Their lifestyles have been so accustomed to the sea that they’re biologically adapted to it, allowing them to hold their breath longer in the water. However, the over-exploitation of fish stocks in the region, rising sea surface temperatures, and ocean acidity have led to a loss of fish habitats and made the sea people’s lives unsustainable. Now more Bajau Laut are abandoning their traditional lifestyles and habitats and started living on the land. The problem is that many of those indigenous people are not registered properly with Malaysian administrations, so they have no access to public education, healthcare, utilities, or waste management. How will these people in coastal communities, who are highly vulnerable to rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and plastic pollution, survive in the region?
Read the article and learn about the challenges and difficulties that these sea people are facing.
https://edition.cnn.com/climate/malaysia-bajau-indigenous-sea-nomads-land-c2e-spc/index.html
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