Clad in a wet suit and diving mask, Jin So-hee’s figure parts the green-blue water until she abruptly dives below the surface, her fins disappearing into the deep.
When she resurfaces one-and-a-half minutes later, her gloved hands grip six or seven sea cucumbers, their spiked backs glistening.
“This is the biggest one. What do we do?” she asks her partner, Woo Jung-min. “The boss is going to be mad. He told us to bring in the really big ones today.”
Photo: Reuters
Climate change and environmental pollution have made finding enough sea life to harvest more difficult for Jin, Woo and other South Korean haenyeo, or “sea women.”
For six years, Jin, 28, has dived the icy seas off the rocky shore of Geoje Island, gathering abalone, conches, seaweed and other marine life by hand to be sold locally.
Every year the waters are a little less icy — warming as much as 2.6 times more than the world average — changing the undersea habitat and casting doubt on the future of the haenyeo.
Photo: Reuters
Jin and Woo, 35, are some of the youngest women following a tradition of free-dive fishing that has already faced massive upheaval in the face of advances in fishing practices and altered village life in the high-tech world of modern South Korea.
Most of the living haenyeo are aged 70 or older, and in Busan, veteran divers said that the catches are a fraction of those a decade ago.
“I’ll continue unless I’m sick, and my wish is this seafood can live until then so that I can continue this work,” said 86-year-old Ko Bok-hwa, who has been a diver since she was 13.
Jin and Woo have tried to adapt, running a YouTube channel called Yozum Haenyeo (“Modern Sea Women”) to chronicle their lives and work, with one video garnering more than 600,000 views.
However, climate change might permanently dash their hopes of spending their lives working as free divers.
“I thought that as long as my body is healthy, I could have been the oldest haenyeo, when I’m 90 or 100,” Jin said. “Now that I think about it, my health is not the only concern. I’m worried this job will change drastically, or even disappear, because of climate change.”
Anecdotal evidence observed by haenyeo on the front lines of the changing environment is confirmed by South Korean scientists seeking to study and protect the country’s fisheries.
“Climate change changed the habitats of sea life and brought an influx of non-native species,” South Korean National Institute of Fisheries Science researcher Ko Jun-cheol said.
From 1968 to 2017, the sea surface temperature around South Korea rose 1.2°C, compared with a world average of 0.48°C, he said.
Warmer waters have brought new, subtropical species that have displaced the haenyeo’s traditional catch, and changed the sea floor habitat by introducing more stony coral and killing off seaweed forests.
Large beds of seaweed have disappeared, replaced by rock-like coralline algae and resulting in the decrease of marine resources.
With less seaweed, which the haenyeo also harvest as food, the women increasingly have to dive deeper, Jin said.
That is more physically challenging and the women said that they need to deal with more pollution, complicating their already dangerous jobs.
“I’m finding more golf balls than sea cucumbers now,” Jin said.
The haenyeo said that the changes are becoming more pronounced every year.
“The problems seem very real to us,” Woo said, after evaluating her diminished catch and tallying up her totals for a recent pay day. “Today, I’m thinking once again: ‘This is really serious.’”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was