Clad in a black wet suit and pink face mask, Jin So-hee’s figure cleanly parts the green-blue water until she abruptly dives below the surface, her purple fins disappearing into the deep. When she resurfaces a minute and a half later, her gloved hands grip six or seven sea cucumbers, their spiked backs glistening in the sun. “This is the biggest one, what do we do?” she asks her partner, Woo Jung-min. “The boss is going to be mad. He told us to bring in the really big ones today.” Climate change and environmental pollution have made finding enough sea life to harvest more difficult for Jin, Woo, and other South Korean “haenyeo,” or “sea women.”

Dwindling harvest: South Korean's 'sea women' struggling with warmer waters. (2021, April 20). Philippine Daily Inquirer, B6.