Sea Gypsies--fishing dilemmas

The Sea Gypsies have little money and inferior equiptment. The waters of Thailand are already overfished, so sometimes they will go to the nearby waters of Burma where there is not such a large fishing industry. The problem: they must do so illegally. Because they do not yet have Thai nationality, or any nationality for that matter, they are in particularly big trouble if they get caught. A couple days before we arrived, a group of men was out fishing late at night illegally in Burmese waters (weigh: fishing illegally and risking getting caugh with no knowledge of national laws...and being able to feed your families.) Burmese officials stopped them, confiscated all of their fish, and confiscated their boat. One of the Moken men went back the next day to get the boat...and he still hadn't returned. Many of these men have spent time in jails from Burma to India, for days, weeks, or years, and with no papers, no traces with which their families would be able to locate them, and no way to communicate through these different languages (many Moken do not even speak Thai,) you can imagine how terrifying it must be.
Their livelyhood has become very dangerous. Also to catch fish, when times get rough they also still use bombs (they blow up in the water, shock, and kill a wide range of surrounding fish) which are both illegal and an environmental nightmare. There are at least two Moken men walking around in this tiny village with one arm because of unfortunate accidents with these bombs...they are very dangerous for people, too.
Yet another dangerous practice: deep diving to fetch sea cucumbers (apparently the Chinese love them.) Without masks or scuba gear, teenage boys and young men will go out on diving missions for weeks at a time gathering shell fish, sea cucumbers, and other food on the ocean floor at depths as low as 75 feet. The village chief's son has been hospitalized in Ranong for the past two years because of a diving accident; he got the bends (similar such problems are all too frequent) and still has no use of his legs. One afternoon they took part of our group out while to see how they fish, and it became fairly clear why they sometimes are pushed to these extremes. Two Moken men, clearly masters of the water and more comfortable on their boat than on land, showed us how they fish with nets. The net was about six feet high and perhaps three football fields long. We trew it out into the water, waited and went for a swim, and then returned to collect our winnings. Our "winnings" could not have filled one person. In the entirety of the net, about five puny fish were caught. With the effort that it took, it certainly is not the most efficient method (the gain probably did not even outweight the price of fuel used to power the boat.)
We bought masks and snorkels to use for our few days following volunteering on Ko Lao on Ko Phayam to then give to the Mokens. Hopefully they will be able to both use them for diving as well as offer them to tourists to rent, bringing in some extra income.