[2] However, the Moken face an uncertain future as their population decreases and their nomadic lifestyle and unsettled legal status leave them marginalized by modern property and immigration laws, maritime conservation and development programs, and tightening border policies.

[8] In Thailand they are called chao le, which can mean people who "live by the sea and pursue a marine livelihood" or those who speak the Austronesian language.

The Urak Lawoi are sometimes classified with the Moken, but they are linguistically and ethnologically distinct, being much more closely related to the Malay people.

[11][12] Their knowledge of the sea enables them to live off its fauna and flora by using simple tools such as nets and spears to forage for food, which allows them to impact the environment more minimally than other more intensive forms of subsistence.

[13] More recently, they have reached out and begun trading some food (sea cucumbers and edible bird's nests) as well as marine products like pearls for other necessities at local markets.

The kabang lasts longer and one anthropologist, Jacques Ivanoff, suggests that the boat with its bifurcated bow and stern represent the human body.

For most of the human population, unaided vision underwater is very poor because the eye's cornea fails to focus light onto the retina.

[19][21] The researchers ruled out other possible explanations for the Moken children's underwater abilities: They had not, at some state of their evolutionary history, traded off focussing power from the corneas to their eyes' lenses.

[19] Later, Gislén and others trained European children to see better underwater, for example by crossing their eyes, which increases the power of their lenses and reduces the diameter of their pupils.

[20] The Burmese and Thai governments have made attempts at assimilating the people into their own culture, but these efforts have met with limited success.

[24] The Andaman Sea off the Tenasserim coast was the subject of keen scrutiny from Myanmar's regime during the 1990s due to offshore petroleum discoveries by multinational corporations including Unocal, Petronas and others.

Although nomadic peoples have resided in Thailand's Andaman coastal provinces for several centuries, they have historically neglected to register official ownership of the land due to their lack of knowledge and involvement in legal protocol.

As they are keenly attuned to the ocean, the Moken in the Surin Islands knew the tsunami that struck on 26 December 2004 was coming and managed to preserve many lives.