Bajau Octopus Fishers Swap Compressors for Freediving

In the village of Poto Tano, on Sumbawa Island in Indonesia's West Nusa Tenggara province, a group of Bajau octopus fishers has gone back to diving the way their grandparents did: on a single breath. A report by Maddy Bolt for Mongabay, republished by Eco-Business, describes how the shift is protecting both the divers and the reef they depend on.

The cost of compressor diving

For years many fishers in the area hunted with compressor diving, breathing through a hose fed by a surface air compressor. It lets a diver stay down far longer, and more time underwater means more octopus and more income. One fisher, Well, told Mongabay that this is exactly the temptation.

The price has been high. Compressor diving is linked to decompression sickness, air embolism, paralysis, long-term disability and drowning. Mahari, who leads the local octopus fishing group, reported being paralyzed around 30 times. Well described three episodes of paralysis that each lasted about a month, and another fisher, Wandra, said friends had fallen ill, been paralyzed or died.

West Nusa Tenggara banned compressor diving in a 2020 provincial regulation, and national fisheries law restricts it indirectly as a destructive method.

A brotherhood of octopus fishers

The Jari Foundation, a marine program run by Hani Nusantari and her husband Boen across Lombok and Sumbawa, has been helping fishers make the change. With local government support it set up PELITA, the Octopus Fishermen Brotherhood, which now has around 40 members, many of them former compressor divers.

The group closes two or three areas for several months at a time so octopus stocks can recover, and releases small octopus when they are caught. Only about ten people in the community still master the pocong, a wooden lure worked by freedivers at 15 to 20 meters. PELITA members also guide ecotourism trips, and a women's conservation initiative launched in 2022 has widened community involvement.

Not an easy switch

Enforcement remains a problem. Boen said compressor divers still work at night when no one is watching, and that one night patrol found 50 to 60 of them in a single area. Fishers who spent years on compressors also find it physically hard to return to breath-hold diving.

Still, the story carries a message for recreational freedivers. The Bajau skills that fascinate the diving world are a living tradition, and in Poto Tano breath-hold diving has become a safety measure and a conservation tool. Some of the fishers' children are already moving into marine science and reef monitoring.

For divers inspired by the Bajau, the lesson is not to copy their depths. Their skill comes from a lifetime in the water, and anyone wanting to build breath-hold ability should do it through a course with a certified freediving instructor and always dive with a buddy.