Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Environmental News: Scuba Banned?

Now in other news, I just saw this post and thought it was interesting. Comments?

http://www.tripbase.com/blog/why-scuba-diving-could-soon-become-extinct/

1 comment:

Bryan Norman said...

Interesting link. I posted the following article.

I recall doing a dive, years ago, soon after getting my certification. I was finning furiously, trying to maintain my neutral buoyancy, but I could feel my fins scrape the corals below. Later when I looked down, I noticed the sea bed was littered with a blanket of broken coral branches from the countless of newbies before me.

While it's true that divers wreak some damage to the coral reefs, inadvertent and otherwise, I doubt that a scuba diving ban is the answer. I'm sure that for every square foot of coral that's damaged by a diver, dozens of square foot of corals are saved by divers who have taken a keen interest in conservation as a direct result of being able to visit the underwater world.

Furthermore, in addition to enhanced education efforts here around Tioman, as well as stricter rules and a RM5 conservation tax, I've also noticed that resort boats no longer anchor willy-nilly but use moorings that have been put in place. All of these measures will surely improve the situation.

In other words, the tide has turned.

We should next focus on trying to resolve the macro problems too: pollution, global weather changes, coral bleaching etc.

 
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