The Moken People - Thailand, Myanmar

A brief compendium of the Moken people, an indigenous maritime culture inhabiting the Mergui Archipelago off of the coasts of Myanmar and Thailand.

If we were to take the time to observe the Moken people's way of life, there is much that we can learn about conservation and natural resources management. From their basic, non-materialistic lifestyles, they have gained an intimate knowledge of their ecosystems that has allowed them to benefit from a simple living from the sea with minimal destruction to their environment. So familiar have they become with the coastal waters and islands of the Mergui Archipelago and so intimate have they come to be with the winds and tides, moon and stars, and the many gifts the sea provides them that civilization, such as we in the first world know it, becomes unnecessary.

Only very recently have governments and regimes, due in large part to their lust for a perceived never-ending supply of natural resources, begun their quest to relocate, enslave, massacre and ultimately endanger the Moken people and thus their culture. Through most of the 20th century, the Moken enjoyed a hunter-gatherer livelihood focusing primarily upon subsistence, with little desire for or accumulation of material goods. They held a belief that natural resources were owned by no man, rather are to be enjoyed and shared by everyone including their animist gods. Unfortunately, in more advanced western cultures, this materially poor livelihood is viewed as inferior and many attempts have been made across the world to ‘convert’ the masses of primitive underdeveloped cultures to embrace modernity, with little or no consideration for the loss of these rich cultures.

We have seen in many instances where this pathway to modernity has harmed the Moken people as they strive to fit in with a society they know little about and away from the subsistence livelihood that has ensured their cultural and physical welfare for centuries.