Acclaimed photojournalist Shin Arunrugstichai dives deep into his ocean-saving journey

It’s no secret that there’s plenty wrong with the ocean. When hearing about the overfishing, pollution, and desecration is currently happening in the seas, it can be easy to to find ourselves lost in waves of confusion, anger, and hopelessness – often to the point of becoming numb to perhaps ignorant to the pertinent problems facing the general marine ecology. One individual who’s working hard to continue telling stories of these issues is Sirachai Arunrugstichai, more familiarly known as Shin – a trained marine biologist who ventured into field of conservation photojournalism after witnessing the devastating damage and changes to the marine environments that he cares for greatly.

A post shared by Shin Sirachai Arunrugstichai (@shinalodon) Through his photos, talks, and work with conservation teams, Shin has made a name for himself as a real trendsetter in the field, and has since been named and honored as part of several renown organizations and publications, including being a National Geographic Explorer, and Associated Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, and one of the 6×6 Global Talent Program by World Press Photo. In conjunction with the launch of National Geographic’s Planet Possible Day 2022 happening on TikTok Live, we took the opportunity to speak with Shin and gather his thoughts on his journey, the overall state of ocean conservation in the media, and pick his brains on some of his most-prized photos. I’ve learned to not see conservation issues as simple as black or white.

There’s no silver bullet to fix everything as these issues are often much more complex, especially when we put people’s livelihoods into the equation. Local context really matters and it’s very important to understand these challenges, especially in developing nations. For example, there are currently occasional conflicts between scuba divers and fishers from the Urak Lawoi ethnic group who deploy wooden fish traps on some sites where these two groups of people share resources.

Fishing is their primary profession and the tribe have been marine hunter-gatherers for generations. Their fishing method has high selectivity that results in minimal bycatch, but some privileged divers may think that “fishing is just bad” and destroy the Urak Lawoi fish traps. There are several issues that are being talked about, such as how the marine hunter-gatherers need to settle on an island by government order decades ago with limited rights.

Then there’s also the high selectivity of small-scale fishing gears with minimal bycatch versus non-selective destructive fishing methods of industrial fleets (where the majority of the fishes caught were not for human consumption but for animal feed). Similar other issues are cropping up and many things need to be addressed but I hope you get the picture of the complexity of the issue. I think the public is responsive to the conservation messages that are being delivered and people are willing to cooperate if the required behavior changes are not too inconvenient.

To make change more feasible for people, we need systematic change that requires investment in supporting infrastructure, as well as incentives for cooperation, or for urgent issues, strict policy changes would be required along with actual enforcement of those laws. I think that the narrative of “start with yourself” is a bit overused. While awareness campaigns and education are important, more can be done to promote cooperation by having more budget allocated to infrastructure, policy planning, social impact assessment, and enforcement to make positive changes a reality.

On the contrary, I think audiences these days are much more responsive to the imageries of destruction in comparison to previous decades, at least from what I have seen with my work. I think what is making people feel jaded about the destruction is the lack of action. People’s concern for the environment must be reciprocated with actual action by people in power, otherwise people will start to feel like they are caring for nothing.

Relating to this question, I recently read a study sent by a friend on the effective of death-related imageries for wildlife conservation, the results seem to indicate that for this darker kind of imageries, it would only be effective if the narrative is prevention-based, such as stopping poaching, which has an implication on how storytellers frame our messages to go along with our images. Hope depends on the probability of things getting better in an individual’s perception and experience. If effective responses were implemented in a timely manner to address the issues, I think people would be hopeful and the positive momentum will continue.

This is my viewpoint on a local level, but the overall concept of hope in conservation is the same on the bigger scale as well. We need effective responses and policies to be timely implemented to continue being hopeful for our future. Climate change is also another huge issue besides pollution and overfishing.

Climate change has been wreaking havoc on the reefs with coral bleaching that can potentially impact the recovery of marine life due to reduced survival rate of larvae from ocean acidification. Also, dead zones from eutrophication (when a body of water becomes saturated with minerals and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous) causing a lack in oxygen might be another issue that we have just begun to investigate in Thai waters, but it is not widespread as far as I am aware. In general, I think the media covers key urgent issues already, not saying that we shouldn’t do more! We should also be highlighting how these issues affect people, communities, economy and society so that the public can better understand the severity of the problems and the trajectory we are heading toward.

I would pass on the advice from my dear mentor Thomas P. Peschak: Start working in your backyard. It is unlikely that you’ll capture photos of all the crazy wild animals in exotic locations that you aspire to take, but it is about capturing stories that are meaningful and timely.

It is a great way to educate people about what’s going on in your location and from there you can progress down the road of conservation storytelling. Also, who knows your area better than you?! But if you don’t know the location well enough, it is best to read more and consult with experts or local contacts. Another thing is to tell a story, it often involves working with many people such as local communities, experts, authorities, stakeholders, and so on.

I think it goes without saying that being nice with a sense of humor makes things easier throughout the process. If things don’t go our way (which happens during fieldwork), just have a good laugh while trying to find your way to come back with decent photos. One thing that gives me a mixed feeling about being in Southeast Asia is there are just so many environmental problems to work on, so we aren’t likely to be out of jobs anytime soon, you just need a story that you really care about to work on.

As tropical marine ecosystem that is high in biodiversity, large-scale industrial fishing fleets with destructive gears such as trawls are prevalent in our waters, and these often catch large amounts of non-targeted, non-economic species known as “bycatch” or “trashfish” that are used as food in aquaculture or processed into fishmeal for animal feed. On the flip side, we use non-selective gear to fish for a small number of targeted species. So I’d like to highlight a personal project of mine aimed at promoting high-quality, underutilized fish from local small-scale fishermen who utilize gears with good selectivity and minimal bycatch to deliver seafood to consumers through high-end restaurants that I work with in Bangkok.

I don’t intend to promote more demand to increase fishing pressure, but to create demand for fish that are underutilized and perceived to be lower in value, while giving fishermen good incomes without going through layers of middlemen along the supply-chain. I would like to note that fish caught in trawling – especially with lengthy soak time (the time that the nets are dragged in the water) – are often not that good to eat. Fish caught by small-scale fishers with smaller gears such as traps, or handlines taste much better and is a more sustainable practice.

So I try to promote a more sustainable choice that is even better to eat, in hope that we can gradually shift away from non-selective industrial fishing to more targeted small-scale fisheries. There is no name for this initiative yet, it is just something I started working on recently during past time. S’poreans have the worst mental health, job satisfaction & quality of life in SEA These cartoon TikToks of Pokémon being cut up like meat and veggies will horrify you Thailand demands 10 million baht from 20th Century Fox for ruining Maya Bay TikTok’s search suggests misinformation almost 20 percent of the time, says report Cover image sourced from Sirachai Arunrugstichai .

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