Hi @Hive Community!
I hope that you are having moments of productivity in your houses due to the contingency we are going through, #stayathome. You know it is hard work and it takes many hours of work to bring quality content to Hive. I hope to meet this goal today😃
Surely, at least you have ever dived in a coral reef, or at least you have thought about doing it. It is something we all want! it is really to contemplate a paradise under the waters, where we see so many colors and many animals that live together, making important interactions between them. Is diving in coral reefs bad for ecosystem health?
Photo by Juan Bacab G.
Species identificacion:
Common Name: Bluehead Fish
Scientific Name: Thalassoma bifasciatum
Conservation Status: Least Concern
Photograph taken in Majahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
An article by Luis Santander (University of Quintana Roo) and Enrique Propin (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
Autonomous diving and the practice of it as a sport or tourist activity, was only possible with the development of the appropriate equipment. In 1942-43, the French Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan invented the aqualung system, also known as autonomous opencircuit equipment, which revolutionized the terms and ease of exploring the underwater world, making the eventual popularity of the underwater world viable. diving. The Cousteau and Gagnan system was marketed in France from 1946, in Great Britain from 1951 and a year later in the United States of America (MIT, n/d).
Photo by Hans Peters
The actual situation
For the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the tourism market segments are: Sun and Beach, Sports, Adventure, Nature-based, Cultural, Urban, Rural, Cruise, Theme Parks and of Congresses and Conventions. In the case of sports tourism, the sub-classification includes dive tourism (WTO, 2001). According to the UNWTO, tourism diving is that of people who travel with the main purpose of practicing autonomous diving, also called SCUBA diving.
An interesting fact...
Having as the main reason for the trip the practice of autonomous diving, in a destination whose main attraction is the quality of the diving experience, are two conditions that many people who dive during their vacations do NOT meet and whose direct impacts on coral reefs, this impact is relevant. For example, the famous cruises, whose average number and limited experience are a relevant factor in the impacts suffered by the reefs of Cozumel, Mexico and throughout the world where there is mass tourism.
Photo by Juan Bacab G.
Species identificacion:
Common Name: Bluehead Fish
Scientific Name: Thalassoma bifasciatum
Conservation Status: Least Concern
Photograph taken in Majahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
The numbers...
60% of international diving tourists, the majority of whom are Americans, select the Caribbean as their vacation destination (CEUA, 2006). In 2000, about 3.6 million tourists dived in the Caribbean (Burke and Maidens, 2005). Among divers from the southeastern United States of America, the number of days spent on diving trips in the last 12 months was 14.2, with 5.3 days corresponding to trips outside their country, the dominant international destinations being the Caribbean and specifically Mexico (Garrod and Gössling, 2008).
Photo by Ishan
Coral reefs
Coral reefs are marine habitats defined by their physical structure, the organisms associated with them, and the biological processes that maintain them. The coral reef is a physical structure, built through the accumulation of calcium carbonate, by hermatypic corals and other organisms (Spalding et al 2001).
A coral reef grows really slow. It is estimated that the fastest vertical growth that a reef can have in 1,000 years is 9 to 15 meters, although the average would be a much lower figure (Ibid.). Reef growth is not continuous over time and many current reefs became fossils that eventually served as substrates for later recolonization by corals. Coral reefs are among the oldest living components that exist today (INE, 1997; Bryant et al, 1998; Knowlton, 2001; Spalding et al, 2001).
Photo by Li Fei
So ... how do we damage them when we dive?
When we dive, coral colonies can suffer fractures, injuries and suffocation, which in combination degrade the reef and its resilience. Damage to corals is caused by blows that in many cases are deliberately by divers, either with their fins or some part of their body. The contact that does not fracture the coral, even when it is soft, removes or alters a layer of living tissue that protects the coral skeleton, and thus, they are exposed to diseases. Another relevant damage, caused directly by divers, is that with their movements and equipment, mainly their fins, they lift sand and other sediments. Sediments, when in suspension, reduce the availability of light necessary for the photosynthesis of microorganisms such as dinoflagellates or symbiotic algae, which provide energy sources for coral polyps.
Photo by Marek Okon
How can we minimize the impact?
The Environmental Impact Manifestations (MEI) are environmental studies that precisely limit the impact on ecosystems, in these works we have the following conclusions that can give us ideas to lessen our impact:
- **Disagreements **regarding the ecological implications of the direct impacts of dive tourism are frequent (Townsend, 2008).
- It is possible to avoid damage to the coral ecosystem by limiting the number of divers allowed, providing more training, information and motivation to divers in environmental matters, achieving the direct and proactive intervention of guides and instructors, promoting the environmental responsibility of service providers, among other actions (Tratalos and Austin, 2001).
- In the scientific literature and especially in diving tourism management programs, one of the recurring themes, even today, is the need to establish the tourist carrying capacity (Tilmant and Schmahl, 1982; Hawkins and Roberts, 1992 ).
Photo by Juan Bacab G.
Species identificacion:
Common Name: Moray Eel
Scientific Name: Gymnothorax moringa
Conservation Status: Least Concern
Photograph taken in Majahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
