Sea nomads in the Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, is a biogeographic region of Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia. It does not include the temperate and polar regions of the Indian and Pacific oceans, nor the Tropical Eastern Pacific, along the Pacific coast of the Americas, which is also a distinct marine realm.

The region has an exceptionally high species richness, including 3000 species of fish, compared with around 1200 in the next richest marine region, the Western Atlantic, and around 500 species of reef building corals, compared with about 50 species in the Western Atlantic.

The Bajau people (or Sama-Bajau people) are an ethnic group of Maritime Southeast Asia. The population of the Sama-Bajau people are mostly concentrated in the southern Philippines, in Sabah in Malaysia, in North Kalimantan and Sulawesi in Indonesia as well as in Brunei. They have been mostly nomadic, seafaring people, and obviously their livelihood largely depends on the sea. That’s why they are sometimes called “sea gypsies” or “sea nomads.”

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