Asian Diver – March 2018

FEATURE CORAL SOS

Redefining the Dive

By: Samantha Craven, The Reef-World Foundation

ABOVE : Reef-based tourism accounts for more than 15 percent

of gross domestic product in at least 23

countries and territories (Burke et al., 2011)

IMAGE: Anita Gardener

A study by Medio et al. in 1997 found

that divers contacted the reef an

average of 5.79 times per dive. Imagine

each dive site has two moorings, and

there are two boats for each mooring

during a day. If each boat carries just

12 divers doing two dives per day, that

dive site could experience 556 diver

impacts a day or over 200,000 a year!

An errant fin kick here or there

makes a small impact, but over a year,

it adds up to a lot of damage. With

diving being one of the fastest growing

sectors, with over one million new

divers being certified each year, we

have to be aware of the scale of impact

being made, and more importantly, the

fact that we can do something about it.