One year after the tsunami: Aid project for the sea nomads successfully completed

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) is taking stock almost a year after the tsunami catastrophe: its project for the sea nomads on the small island of Koh Phi Phi, who were not noticed by the large aid organisations and official agencies was brought to a successful end. 67,000 euros had been collected by the GfbV to help the "people of the sea”. The indigenous people were able themselves to escape from the tidal wave because they could read the warning signs of nature. However their boats and their pile dwellings were shattered by the destructive power of the waves.

The GfbV financed with the money donated for 24 of 27 families affected a new boat for each with a powerful outboard motor and new fishing nets. The Thai princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn paid spontaneously for the three remaining boats with the typical superstructures and straw netting when she heard of the GfbV aid project.

Now not only the economic basis is secured for the 70 sea nomads of Koh Phi Phi. Thanks to the donations from Germany and Austria their traditional way of life and culture, centred on the sea, have been saved. The sea is at once food and medicine, house, friend and home of the God of their ancestors. The knowledge of the sea nomads about the sea is so unique that they form part of the world cultural heritage. The Thai state is however not interested in their fate as these indigenous people are seen as "backward”.

There are some 5,000 "people of the sea” along the coast of Burma, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. In accordance with their tradition they live for several months on their boats, which they build themselves from wood which has been stored for a long time and can stand up to the water. However the times are long since past when the indigenous people could themselves fell the wood in the forest for boat-building. These days they must pay a lot of money for the wood.

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: We shall be glad to send you first-class photos of the Gfbv aid project for the sea nomads from the destruction to the building of the boats and their launching. (Tel. ++49 (0)551 499 06-25, presse@gfbv.de)