70-year-old Hayashi Kimiyo is one of the last remaining pearl divers along Japan’s Kii Peninsula, following in her mother and grandmother’s footsteps. But it’s a dying tradition, and as climate change wreaks havoc on the ocean, she fears for the future of her world as she knows it.
Some six thousand miles from her home, a young girl of 15 prepared for her first show in the newly opened San Diego SeaWorld. Wearing the traditional white diving dress of her home village in the Kii Peninsula region on Japan’s main island of Honshu, she plunged into a deep pool in the ‘Japanese Village’, collected an oyster from the bottom, and rose to thunderous applause.
That was in 1964. Most Americans and Western tourists had never seen anyone quite like Kimiyo Hayashi. Her ability to dive to great depths without scuba equipment was remarkable, a skill passed down to her from her mother and grandmother, and generations of women before that.
Hayashi, now 70 years old, is one of Japan’s legendary Ama divers or ‘sea women’ renowned for their underwater hunting skills, who follow a way of life ingrained in Japanese culture for over two thousand years—ancient texts refer to the honored task as far back as the eighth century. Originally, as well as being breadwinners for their families, they were also required to find abalone for imperial emperors. Many wear the same white diving dresses of their ancestors— instead of modern wetsuits—believed to symbolize purity and to ward off sharks.
It wasn’t until Hayashi was 29 that she earned the Ama diver title, and realized her calling to help an ancient tradition survive and be a custodian of the sea. It’s a vocation reserved only for the ‘mature’ women (usually between 40 and 90) of Ago Bay on the southern tip of the Ise-Shima Peninsula (or Shima Peninsula) in Mie Prefecture on the eastern coast of Honshu. Fast forward over 45 years and she’s still here in her beachside hut, diving everyday off the rocks behind her house.
I meet her at her cabin along with my partner and seven-year-old old son. We’re just here for lunch, which is available year-round and consists of whatever has been caught that morning, with rice, green tea and a delicious salty lemonade. But between April and November, and for people aged 13+, it’s also possible to join a 45-minute dive with one of the divers who reside in this particular area, in the Mie Prefecture.
Hayashi welcomes us inside, the unusually warm December sun blazing through the window. Hand-caught barracuda and sea snails lie steaming and sizzling on the hot coals where she’s cooking her catch of the day for us and a handful of other visitors—a second job for her now since her diving income has dropped dramatically, along with local sea life.
“The sea forest is dying. There are now only around 15 days a year where conditions are safe for diving, and our earnings have dropped due to lack of sealife. We’re having to work multiple jobs to be able to continue the tradition.”
- Kimiyo Hayashi
I’m instantly distracted by her presence. Hayashi is radiant, positively glowing with health in a way we can all hope and dream of. “I’ve never had a cold!” she tells me, beaming from inside her traditional diver’s hood as she serves up her haul—much of which she hunted on a single breath.
She watches with delight as my son tackles a roasted, rubbery sea snail, as big as two fists stacked on top of one another. “Normally I would have sea cucumbers for you, because they come out in the cold water in winter,” Hayashi tells me. “But this year, the water temperature is so high, I’ve not been able to find them.” It’s the only time her smile falters.
Like many other cultural traditions around the world, this type of diving is a dying art. While there were around 10,000 Ama divers in the mid-20th century, now there are thought to be fewer than 2,000.
I ask if her family will follow in her footsteps. “My children and grandchildren are choosing shop and office jobs now. They don’t want to dive and I can’t force them,” she tells me. “If you don’t love this work like I do, then you can’t do it. It’s so much a part of who you are, and you become part of nature. If you’re not passionate about this it can be dangerous.” She recounts times that she nearly died, getting too close to boat propellers—but never running out of breath.
But it’s not only dwindling interest from younger generations that’s leading to the disappearance of this important diving tradition. It’s the ever-changing ocean environment and decreasing marine life too—issues of increasing concern to Hayashi, who has become intimately connected to the water and seen alarming changes over recent years, something all the remaining Ama divers have been noticing.
A dramatic rise in water temperatures has become palpable, particularly over the past three or four years. Hayashi tells me that the water all around here used to be green, but now it’s blue because of the degradation of marine ecosystems where the environment loses its biodiversity, productivity and natural resources—in effect, becoming a barren and severely damaged desert in the ocean.
“It’s become a very serious situation. The sea forest is dying,” Hayashi says. “There are now only around 30 days a year where the ocean is clear and calm enough to be safe for diving, and our earnings have dropped due to lack of sea life. We’re having to work multiple jobs to be able to continue the tradition.”
Ago Bay is far from the only place in the world where changes like this are taking place. Marine biologist Ness Smith from UK-based Howell Marine Consulting, which specializes in sustainable blue economy projects, says while the marine environment is particularly good at regulating itself, it’s vulnerable.
Industrial fishing and excessive seaweed harvesting are some of the biggest factors creating imbalance between marine species—in turn, this affects their place on a reef and the functions they perform.
“Indigenous people like Hayashi know their environment intimately. They understand the seasons. They understand the flux and flow of different species.”
- Ness Smith, marine biologist
“We’ve already reached the point of no-return in some areas of the world, where we’ve damaged the ecosystem so badly that it can’t recover,” says Smith. “Agricultural run-off and pollution of all varieties, from nitrates in the soil to radioactive waste and even noise and vibrations, plays a big role in ocean destruction too.”
Of course, “the biggie” as she puts it, is climate change. “Just a couple of years of heat stress is enough for all creatures in the sea to die off,” she says. “They’re used to living in a particular sea surface temperature or bottom temperature, and they’re quite sensitive to just a couple of degrees change.”
As the sea produces much more oxygen and absorbs much more carbon dioxide than land, it’s a major climate regulator—so these rising temperatures impact everyone and everything on the planet. It’s also predicted they’ll alter the conveyor belt system of heat transfer across the ocean too, a change that will likely cause heat stored in surface water to rise into the air, which powers the development and strength of hurricanes.
But Smith stresses that although the situation may look bleak, with projections that there won’t be a Great Barrier Reef in 50 years, efforts are being made to give the ocean the space and time it needs to recover. Paying attention to Indigenous wisdom, like Hayashi’s, might be the most powerful thing we can do moving forward.
“Indigenous people like Hayashi know their environment intimately. They understand the seasons. They understand the flux and flow of different species,” Smith says. “And there’s a big movement towards working with Indigenous communities, to learn from them and to work with them to help restore ocean life.”
This is something that UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the lead coordinating agency of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), known as the Ocean Decade, also understands, saying, “it is key to recognize, respect and engage local and Indigenous knowledge holders to tackle the ocean challenges.”
Ama divers are regularly invited to climate research symposiums around the world to share their story and draw attention to the dire condition their corner of the Pacific Ocean is now in. As Smith says, “All that incredible knowledge can be used by scientists to enrich our understanding of a specific part of the world and what’s going on. They’re the real knowledge bearers and custodians of those oceans.”
But beyond highlighting the issue, they’re also keen to encourage people to visit them in Ago Bay, to eat in their restaurant and pay for the opportunity to dive with them. A one-off experience for a tourist can provide essential financial support that directly helps these women continue their traditional diving work.
As Hayashi proudly shows me the largest abalone shell she’s ever caught—adding it’s not possible to find any this big anymore—I ask her what she wants to tell the world. “Our situation has reached a critical condition,” she says. “We need people to come here to dive with us, speak to us, eat in our restaurant so we can continue to afford to dive, and to learn our ways, to help preserve this tradition and rescue our sea forest. I hope that maybe we will find our successors too, even if they come from outside Japan.”
Through working with and listening to traditional knowledge holders like Hayashi, to create co-designed ocean science and a deeper understanding of our world, there may be hope for our Earth yet. Before we leave, I tell Hayashi what a great story she has and promise to do what I can to share it with the world. She laughs, and shrugs. She’s heard that one before, but there’s still hope in her community that the outside world will suddenly show up for them, and the seaweed will flourish, the water will go green, and her prized treasure of abalone and pearl-filled oysters will once again be abundant. “I have pride in myself, and I love diving. Now I just want to find our successors and protect our ocean and tradition.”
Returning her focus to the barracuda on the grill, it’s evident where her devotion lies. If only we all felt that way about our small part of the world and the lives we lead, the future of our planet might look very different.
From March to December, you can take a boat trip and dive with an experienced Ama free diver in Ago Bay. On these trips, visitors can learn techniques that are almost 2,000 years old, and understand the culture and history of Ama diving with these custodians of an ancient tradition.
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Ruby Deevoy is an award-nominated health, science and travel writer with bylines in publications such as New Scientist, Conde Nast Traveller, The Times and The Telegraph. She specializes in native medicines, spirituality and Indigenous communications, and lives in Scotland with her family and rescue dog, Willow.
