Absent a sense or concept of future our familiar ways of thinking become inappropriate. Even such ideas as credit depend on a notion of future. And "no-take" zones clearly make sense if one realizes that they mean a future benefit. So communicating remedial practices in the situation Dr. Crabbe describes, if the culture is to be respected, becomes peculiarly difficult.
The moral challenge is, if anything, even more difficult for our commercialized global societies. If, by respecting the Bajau culture, we refrain from imposing change, and we recognize the danger of bomb fishing and the use of cyanide, our best option might be to outlaw those practices for everyone and restrict further access to the explosives and cyanide we have provided them. A further step would be to establish many large "no-take" zones in all coral reef regions for everyone except subsistence communities such as the Bajau, living and fishing in traditional ways. This might be both practically and morally acceptable.
The draconian approach that Dr. Crabbe mentions, while clearly not endorsed by him, would reflect a lack of respect for the Bajau culture; they have lived for a long time with the reefs and their resources without destroying them.
