Can reef conservation programmes help reducing SCUBA diving damage to coral reefs? A case study in Thailand

Mendes, Bruno Miguel Silvestre

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/7950

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
THESIS Bruno Mendes.pdf		1.62 MB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Mendes, Bruno Miguel Silvestre

Advisor(s)

Erzini, Karim

Phongsuwan, Niphon

Abstract(s)

Coral reefs are under threat all over the world. Coastal human activities are not always sustainable in this vulnerable ecosystem and may produce continual and cumulative damage. At the present, Thailand is a main tourist destination for SCUBA divers from all around the world and this industry is having a big expansion in recent years. However this growth is revealing problems at the conservation level, since Thailand has difficulties implementing and enforcing environmental laws and regulations to manage its coral reefs. Therefore, reef conservation programmes appear as a non-regulatory form to attempt to reduce the damage produced by SCUBA divers to the corals. The reef conservation programme Greenfins was funded in 2004 with the mission statement “to protect and conserve coral reefs by establishing and implementing environmentally friendly guidelines to promote a sustainable diving tourism industry”. This study attempts to quantify the amount of damage that SCUBA divers produce in Thailand and compare the damage produced by guided SCUBA divers form Greenfins dive operators and non-Greenfins members. Also, some diver personal characteristics, diver history, diver environmental characteristics and dive characteristics were examined and tested against the influence in the number of divers that damaged the reef and the damage rate. The mean average of damaging contacts was 1.97 per 30 minutes of the dive and the median damage was one contact per 30 minutes of the dive. Most damage occurred in the first 10 minutes of the dive, involuntarily and caused by the diver’s fins. Comparatively, these results are relatively lower than those of other studies with non-Greenfins operators. In Thailand, reef topography was the only factor that influenced the damage to the corals, with diving in vertical topographies showing a lower damage. However in the Andaman Sea, divers with high level of environmental awareness and divers with knowledge of Greenfins were less damaging to the corals, suggesting a better involvement of the members with the aims of the programme. This study suggests that dive operators should promote the environmental education of their staff and customers in order to reduce damage on the coral reefs. Some measures that can be implemented are for example: choice of the dive sites according to reef topography, with preference given to vertical topographies; provide documentation and information on coral reefs marine life and conservation; improve the pre-dive briefings, vulnerability of corals, buoyancy control and fins awareness. To a certain extent it can be concluded that the implementation of reef conservation programmes such as Greenfins, may be already improving the education of the SCUBA divers and reducing the damage on the corals of Thailand.