Winners Gallery
1st place Ocean Portfolio Award
Sirachai Arunrugstichai Thailand
A young grey reef shark is hooked by an angler at night at Burma Bank, an offshore plateau in the Andaman Sea off the coast of Myanmar. "Although shark fisheries have been legally banned in Myanmar at the national level since 2009, there is a lack of enforcement at sea and poor trade regulation," says Arunrugstichai. "This image is not a picture of an industrial shark fishing boat. The shark was incidentally caught and released."
All of Sirachai's Collective Portfolio Award entry
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BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Morning shoot
- 20-metre visibility
- Windy conditions topside
- Taken on snorkel
“A Ranong guitarfish, a species that was only described in 2019, is hauled to the surface by fishermen on a gill net fishing boat at an offshore island in the Myeik Archipelago in Myanmar,” says Arunrugstichai. “Elasmobranchs such as sharks and rays are especially vulnerable to overexploitation due to their life-history characteristics. Due to intense fishing pressures, their populations in Southeast Asia could be exploited to depletion before being studied and managed in the region.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Taken using natural light in factory
- Rainy and overcast day
- Site accessed on scooter
- Midday shoot
Gill rakers from endangered spinetail devil rays, a highly prized wildlife product, are laid onto a drying board at a ray processing factory in Myanmar. “The price of dried devil ray gill rakers can reach up to 200 USD per kilogram in East Asia, while gill rakers of its close relatives, the manta ray, can fetch twice the price,” says Arunrugstichai. “According to an ongoing investigation, these gill rakers are smuggled into Thailand via land border before getting shipped to destinations in East Asia, despite the CITES listing of the species.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Calm seas
- Looming storm
- Morning shoot
- Good underwater visibility
A living streaked spinefoot is entangled alongside a dead one in a large ghost net that covers an underwater pinnacle. “Although the Myeik Archipelago is often perceived as one of the most untouched waters in the Andaman Sea, the underwater realm reveals a contrasting reality,” says Arunrugstichai. “A survey in 2019 revealed that 95% of surveyed sites had ghost gear present, while around 30% of those sites had multiple layers of fishing nets covering the sites.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Mid-morning shoot
- Hot, sunny day
- Captured within refrigerated container
- Site accessed by car
A worker sits atop a pile of frozen, dismembered shark carcasses imported from Indonesia inside a refrigerated container. “Although finning is generally seen as a significant driver of shark fisheries in the world, fisheries nowadays are commonly taking the whole sharks instead of only fins as the meat is widely consumed as a cheap protein source and also traded internationally,” says Arunrugstichai. “Nonetheless, whether it is utilised whole or not, the main concern is the sustainability of the fisheries.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Taken in sheltered bay
- Midday shoot
- 30 degrees Celsius water
- Taken on scuba equipment
A decaying carcass of a juvenile blacktip reef shark is entangled in ghost nets abandoned by illegal fishers in a shallow reef off Phuket in Thailand. “An estimated 20% of marine plastics in the ocean are fishing gear, which are either abandoned, lost, or discarded,” says Arunrugstichai. “This ghost gear can continue to kill aquatic animals long after being lost. These nets were removed that day by a group of volunteer divers and Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Taken inside a factory
- Monsoon season
- Midday shoot
- Factory accessed by scooter
A teenage girl carries a wooden rack for drying small-bodied requiem sharks, including spadenose sharks and spottail sharks, after being butterflied and salted at a shark and ray processing factory in Myanmar. “Although shark fisheries have been banned in Myanmar since 2009, there are still targeted fisheries and active markets for shark products in this Southeast Asian country,” says Arunrugstichai. “The shark meat is generally consumed locally as salted fish, while the fins are illegally smuggled overseas via land borders.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Late morning shoot
- Museum location
- First visit to site
- Photographer intrigued by abstract patterns
Dried rostrums of adult largetooth sawfish are displayed at the Museum of Fisheries in Bangkok. “Sawfishes are among the most threatened fish in the world,:” says Arunrugstichai. “Three species out of the five extant sawfishes have been reported to occur in Thai waters – the narrow sawfish, the largetooth sawfish, and the green sawfish. But due to a lack of sightings in past decades and the intensive fishing activities around Thailand, it is now widely accepted that they could have already become extinct in these waters.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Afternoon shoot
- Site accessed by boat
- 27 degrees Celsius water
- Calm sea conditions
A giant manta ray with large wounds is entangled in ghost nets of Thailand. “The ray repeatedly approached divers and allowed them to remove some of the nets,” says Arunrugstichai. “Although most of the nets were removed, some remained and were tightly wrapped around a cephalic lobe, which was close to falling off. A fishing boat captain suggested that these nets are commonly used by boats from Myanmar, highlighting the importance of transboundary efforts for conserving these highly migratory rays.”
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Cloudy conditions
- Early-morning shoot
- Taken on scuba equipment
- Site accessed by boat
A male pharaoh cuttlefish attempts to mate with the carcass of another male killed in ghost fishing nets in the reefs of the Myeik Archipelago off Myanmar. “This photo is the first photographic evidence of behaviour that resembles homosexual necrophilia in cephalopods in a natural environment,” says Arunrugstichai. “A scientific paper about this behaviour is being edited for publication.”
BEHIND THE LENS
Sirachai Arunrugstichai Thailand
Sirachai “Shin” Arunrugstichai is an independent photojournalist and marine biologist, specialising in marine conservation stories. He is an Associate Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and a National Geographic Explorer. Shin regularly works for various conservation organisations and covers news as a stringer for Getty Images. His photographs have been published in National Geographic, Smithsonian, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Guardian, among many others.
MORE IMAGES BY Sirachai Arunrugstichai
Conservation (Impact)Photographer of the Year
2024 Myeik Archipelago, Myanmar
Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean
2023 Rayong, Thailand
Conservation (Impact)Photographer of the Year
2023 Myeik, Myanmar
Conservation (Impact)Photographer of the Year
2023 Rayong, Thailand
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Enjoy the vibrancy, beauty and impact of each year's finalist photography, celebrated in our Ocean Photographer of the Year coffee table book collection.
