Where the sea whistle echoes

Ama, the legendary women divers of Japan, have been practicing sustainable fishing for hundreds of years, but climate change coupled with overfishing is bringing them face to face with an uncertain future.

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i wish i could to talk to these women... so many histories, legends, myths... beautiful lives! thanks for sharing

[darumaeye]

A fascinating and nicely narrated documentary.

[nashfrogman]

Of course, the Ama protect the sea thru their coop. When the wetsuit was introduced and accepted, a time limit was imposed to protect the the fishing environment. Early dive equipt. was outlawed as well to protect fishing grounds. I am a male, I scuba and free dive. This is very impressive to me. The interviews show much wisdom and valuable experience of the ama. They do not "work" the sea, they "work" with the sea. I love this video.

[Scottparnelloutdoors]

Really well done video. The Amas "intuneness" to my heavenly Fathers World is inspiring! I am a spearfisherman & find the Amas statements about the love for diving to be...beautiful &, for me, relatable. Thankyou!

[punapirate]

I too found this video inspiring and heartfelt. It moved me. I am a master SCUBA instructor and free diver [lamenting over my loss of breath hold ability - I'm 62 - but seeing these older women still diving inspires me to no end] Thank you so much. NOW STOP THE DAMN DOLPHIN SLAUGHTER.

[huntitty]

9:10 What is the name of the festival? I can't hearing. :(

[luckyho]

Anybody know the piano piece at the very end? I don't have shazam : (

[oO_ox_O]

6:25 Is the man speaking in some strange accent?

[edmundworrell]

They have a "strong faith in nature plus the ocean" the commentator said. But god made the universe of which everything in nature is a part, so what they indirectly have, assuming the statement to be true, is a strong faith in god. This is good.

Their ceremony where they set the shrine buit of bamboo to float out to sea is reminescent of a similar Hindu practice of setting adrift on the sea a floating shrine upon which there are many "deyas" which are small shallow bowls filled with oil which feeds a flame at the top of a wick floating in the oil.

Unfortunately, change always comes, and when it does it is inexorable and cannot be resisted. The sahara is an arid desert, and yet in the middle of it the bones of ancient whales are dug up - because of change. The himalayas are on average between 27 000 to 29 000 feet above sea level, and yet on their summits the fossils of ancient sea life, and pink salt from evaporated ancient oceans are found - because of inexorable change.

It is a waste of a wish for me to wish that change spares this mode of life and the culture that garbs it, because the steering of change is beyond my power, or the power of any other human being. That does not mean that we should not do our very best to not pollute our oceans, but what makes a pollutant a pollutant is the fact that it is a change; a new factor introduced into an old and formerly stable environment. The trick is to ride the change, become the change and match it, so that it feeds you instead of breaking you.

A great example of the occurrence of change is the greatest pollution event that this world has ever seen, which was driven by plant life, and which led to the extinction of 99 percent of the species then present on earth. This change was due to the new ability of certain microorganisms - the first plants - to use sunlight and carbon dioxide to create their own food instead of predating upon other living cells for their livlihood, or feeding upon the sulphurous emissions from underwater volcanic vents for an energy source to stay alive.

Their new ability we now call photosynthesis and it was based upon their creating of a new molecule called chlorophyll. The problem was that this new ability to photosynthesize food created pollution in the form of the release of oxygen which began to fill up the atmosphere and led to the extinction event.

So we can manage pollution, but even as we do so there are organisms whcih are evolving to use the so called pollutant as an energy source. For instance, there are currently microorganisms that eat plastic. It was silly to suppose that the rich source of carbon in plastics would for long remain unavailable to fast evoving microorganisms, and become the only - and the first - energy resource in the world that was not fully exploited by them.