Statelessness And Conservation 85 which influence people’s behaviour.9 The recent extension of territoriality resulting from declarations of maritime exclusive economic zones in the postindependence period only exacerbated the porosity of these borders, which in turn has had an impact on resident communities’ claims to citizenship and the responses of the modern state to these claims. The continuities between this process of territorialisation and initiatives such as the CTI are highlighted by the heavy reliance of conservation planners on mapping and spatial planning techniques.10 The Bajau Laut who reside along the east coast of Sabah, Malaysia, are one group of resource users in South-East Asia experiencing the impact of heightened regulatory measures under the CTI. Often referred to somewhat pejoratively as ‘sea nomads’, the Bajau Laut (also known as the Sama Dilaut) are characterised by a tradition of mobile lifestyles spent largely aboard houseboats in extended family groupings. This practice is shared with three related ethnic groups across maritime South-East Asia, comprising the Moken of the Mergui Archipelago, the Orang Laut who are present along the western Thai-Malay peninsula to the Riau Archipelago and the Sama-Bajau of eastern Indonesia and the southern Philippines, to whom the Bajau Laut of Sabah are closely affiliated linguistically. However, relatively few instances of ‘sea nomadism’ are extant across contemporary South-East Asia, with market forces and government initiatives resulting in semi-permanent ‘water villages’ of stilt houses connected by bridges constructed over bays or reef flats. Despite this sedentarisation, the Bajau Laut and other formerly nomadic communities retain their ethnic identity through limiting their contact with more powerful ethnic groups. The trading of fish and other marine products for rice, salt, water and other basic necessities are often the sole mechanism of interaction with land-based populations, continuing a relationship documented since the time of European contact.11 The position of the Bajau Laut is rendered precarious by the condition of statelessness which affects many individuals within this and other ethnic minorities in Malaysia. The outbreak of civil unrest in the southern Philippines in the mid 1970s led to an influx of thousands of Bajau Laut and other ethnic 9 10 11 Nancy L Peluso and Peter Vandergeest, ‘Genealogies of the Political Forest and Customary Rights in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand’ (2001) 60 Journal of Asian Studies 637. Morena Mills, Robert L Pressey, Rebecca Weeks, Simon Foale and Natalie C Ban, ‘A Mismatch of Scales: Challenges in Planning for Implementation of Marine Protected Areas in the Coral Triangle’ (2010) 3 Conservation Letters 291. Clifford Sather, The Bajau Laut: Adaptation, History and Fate in a Maritime Fishing Society of South-Eastern Sabah (OUP 1997). tilburg law review 19 (2014) 81-89