Thailand Closes Diving Sites to Protect Corals

[davidm]

The photo accompanying this article ruined my day

 

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/thailand-closes-diving-sites-to-protect-corals/?hp

[Kingumar]

+1 about the photo....

but good, another step to saving the reefs

[Coral Hind]

Just another picture of a clueless tourist.

 

I don't see that close the sites for a year is really bad thing unless you are in the tourism industry or already had a dive trip planned. Plus it was only for seven sites and there are lots of other places to go. A glass bottom boat so people will still be able to see the reefs or lack or reefs is a good alternative.

[lowsingle]

If rising sea temperature is the problem, why would you close down the dive sites? Divers don't heat up the sea. All you are doing is killing someone's business for no reason and you still are not addressing the real problem. Rising temperatures in the seas coupled with fertilizer run off are the primary reasons why reefs are dying, not divers. If you have ever been to Bangkok you can get a first hand view of the pollution.....Eco-tourism, in the form of safaris and dives are one of the best ways to preserve nature as it creates an economic incentive for countries to save their ecosystems. I was diving last year at key west and the difference between the preserve areas and the open fishing areas was enormous.

 

Darren

[FearTheTerps]

If rising sea temperature is the problem, why would you close down the dive sites?

 

I think their reasoning behind this is that if the reefs are already damaged or stressed from the higher temps it would help the reefs if they werent frequented by tourist that dont know to properly behave themselves when diving. See picture in article

[lowsingle]

I think their reasoning behind this is that if the reefs are already damaged or stressed from the higher temps it would help the reefs if they werent frequented by tourist that dont know to properly behave themselves when diving. See picture in article

 

The picture that they show is dying from the base, not the tips........if that was from a careless diver running into it the death would likely be at the tips, not the base........that was not my point though.....if they don't try to fix the root cause stopping all diving will change nothing--just decrease local tourism, hurting the local economy and forcing the locals to make money from fishing, which has a much bigger impact on the reef. It is bad environment policy 101.

 

Darren

[FearTheTerps]

They changed the picture on the article, the first picture showed a woman standing with flip flops on ontop of a large domed shaped coral colony, not sure what species it actually was.

[lowsingle]

They changed the picture on the article, the first picture showed a woman standing with flip flops on ontop of a large domed shaped coral colony, not sure what species it actually was.

 

If that was the picture than that is pathetic! A diver should know better than that!

 

Darren