Sustain

Today the earth's oceans are going through what many scientists refer to as an 'ecological meltdown'. There has been systematic obliteration of great swaths of fishing grounds and the list of endangered fish species grows year on year. The face of the fishing industry has completely changed in a very short period of time since the first commercial fishermen cast their nets, partly because of a collective notion that the seas are different from the land, and a place free to exploit. In 2010 the seas hold just 10 per cent of the fish stock that they did in the 1950s. With this bleak statistic as a starting point I set off on a journey that has to date crossed four continents, photographing not just fishermen but their families and the communities that depend on the sea for their livelihood. From the cod fishermen in Iceland to the displaced fishing communities of the remote islands of Myanmar (Burma), my aim has been to record an industry that is itself in danger of extinction. These images serve as a document of the men and women and their way of life, with the haunting knowledge that many of these communities could soon cease to exist.