Roche2016_Article_RecreationalDivingImpactsOnCor.pdf - 0 views
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Recreational diving on coral reefs is an activity that has experienced rapidly growing levels of popularity and participation.
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the potential role of dive impacts in contributing to coral reef damage is a concern at heavily dived locations. Management measures to address this issue increasingly include the introduction of programmes designed to encourage environmentally responsible practices within the dive industry.
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Coral reefs are a threatened, but globally important ecosystem, providing key services to local communities such as coastal defence, sediment production, and fisheries benefits
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The role of dive supervision was assessed by recording dive guide interventions underwater, and how this was affected by dive group size.
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Over recent decades, tourism activities benefiting from the pleasing aesthetics and biodiversity of coral reefs, primarily SCUBA diving and snorkelling, have experienced rapidly increasing numbers of participants globally
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We found evidence that the ability of dive guides to intervene and correct diver behaviour in the event of a reef contact decreases with larger diver group sizes. Divers from operators with high levels of compliance with the Green Fins programme exhibited significantly lower reef contact rates than those from dive operators with low levels of compliance.
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Damage to corals on dived reefs often occurs as a result of skeletal breakage, particularly in branching species (Guzner et al. 2010;H a s l e ra n dO t t 2008). Tissue abrasion can also result from diver contact (Hawkins et al. 1999), and a recent study reported a higher incidence of coral disease in areas heavily used for recreational diving
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It is possible that other diver characteristics such as qualification level or dive experience may affect the ability to respond to dive briefings, although several studies have failed to find a correlation between divers’ reef contact rates and experience
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Due to the difficulties of effectively addressing global stressors, an emerging recommendation is the focus of coral reef management on local scales (e.g. Anthony et al. 2014). A frequent challenge facing managers and policy makers at local levels relates to the maximisation of tourism benefits whilst simultaneously reducing its environmental impacts
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Alternatively, previous experience and possible affinity and attachment to a specific dive site may influence how closely divers follow pre-dive briefings and affect their behaviour underwater, as suggested by place attachment theory
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The methodologies which have been developed to minimise the environmental impact of SCUBA diving on coral reefs can be summarised as follows: (1) managing or restricting diver numbers, (2) regulating the locations in which SCUBA diving activities occur, (3) regulating the types of equipment used, and 4) implementing programmes which seek to manage the methods used by the dive industry in providing their services. Restricting diver numbers is based on the concept of a reef dive site’s ‘carrying capacity’; a level beyond which diving impacts become readily apparent.
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Restriction of SCUBA diving equipment has focused on banning the use of accessories believed to increase reef contacts within marine protected areas such as gloves, muck sticks, or underwater cameras; however, such regulations are often unpopular within the SCUBA diving community
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Governments and reef managers seek evidence that the effort expended in implementing programmes translates into measurable benefits; however, research into the effectiveness of such programmes at influencing diver behaviour and reducing diving impacts is limited.
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In this study, we focused on dive operators participating in the Green Fins diving programme at three major dive locations within the Philippines.
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Nonetheless, levels of dive supervision underwater would intuitively appear to be linked to rates of reef contact, and when examined, the willingness of dive guides to intervene in correcting diver behaviour underwater has been found to significantly reduce diver contact rates
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Malapascua Island, Moalboal, and Puerto Galera.
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divers may have been aware that a Green Fins compliance assessment was taking place, but they were unaware that diver contacts with the reef were being specifically recorded. Green Fins environmental assessments and diver observations were conducted simultaneously.
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Dive guides and guest divers from 44 dive operators participating in the Green Fins programme were followed
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Diver characteristics with potential to influence underwater behaviour were categorised as the following factors: diver qualification level (three levels), dive experience (five levels), and previous number of dives at site (three levels).
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Divers were assigned a unique diver number, and then followed and observed underwater for the entire duration of their dive.
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If the overall group was very large such that the dive guide could not be seen from the rear of the group, the pair immediately behind the dive guide was selected.
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Compliance with the Green Fins approach was determined by utilising diver contact rates and dive guide intervention rates as at the dependent variables of interest, and by defining dive operators according to those who had received a high score (above the median score) versus those with a low score (below the median score) on the most recent conducted Green Fins assessment
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The part of the body or item of equipment making contact with the reef was recorded as follows: hand, fin, knee, camera, muck stick (a handheld stainless steel or aluminium rod approximately 30 cm in length) and equipment (e.g. tank, submersible pressure gauges, octopus regulator), and multiple (parts of the body and equipment simultaneously). The time during the dive at which the contact occurred was also recorded.
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If observable damage (i.e. breakage, obvious physical damage, or injury) occurred as a result of the contact this was recorded, together with the apparent awareness of the diver to the contact, regardless of damage caused.
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Interventions were defined as an event in which the dive guide intervened in diver behaviour through signalling or demonstrating correct behaviour in order to minimise or prevent contact with the reef.
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A total of 100 SCUBA divers were observed at three diving locations within the Philippines (Table 1). The majority (72 %) of these divers were male, and diving experience ranged from those completing diving training to those who were instructors elsewhere with experience of hundreds of dives.
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Following dive completion, divers that had been observed underwater were asked to complete a survey to determine diver characteristics.
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Most contacts were made with fins (45.5 %, n = 261); however, hands (19.5 %, n = 112) and dive equipment (15.9 %, n = 91) were also major contributors to the total number of contacts
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Contacts made with a camera (77.7 %) accounted for the highest proportion of contacts which resulted in damage, followed by contacts made with the knee (43.3 %), multiple body and equipment parts (38.2 %), equipment (30.7 %), fins (29.8 %), hands (24.7 %), and muck sticks (23.5 %).
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A total of 81 interventions were observed (in comparison to 573 reef contacts—see Fig. 4 for the distribution of contacts and interventions);
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Camera systems were carried by 55 % of divers; camera-wielding divers accounted for 52.7 % of the total contacts made with the reef. Of divers who utilised a camera, 35 % carried a non-specialist compact type and 20 % carried an SLR type within a specialist underwater housing.
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Mean (±SE) dive time was 49.3 ± 0.42 min. A total of 573 diver contacts with the reef were recorded during all assessed dives.
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The difference in the frequency of interventions was statistically significant (ANOVA, f = 4.81, P = 0.03)
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although a significant portion (36 %) appeared unaware of the contact they made with the reef.
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In addition to overall contact levels, some studies have also quantified reef contacts either as the mean number of contacts per diver over the duration of a dive or the diver contact rate per minute of dive time. The mean contact rates of 5.7 contacts per dive, or 0.12 contacts per min, which we observed at dive sites in the Philippines are lower than those previously reported
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All divers observed within the present study were diving with operators participating to various degrees in the Green Fins environmentally responsible diving programme.
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Identifying factors and policy measures which influence SCUBA diver behaviour underwater can help coral reef managers determine where to most effectively focus effort and funding with respect to dive management. In this study, we found that 88 % of the divers observed made at least one contact with the reef at some point
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Divers who are more conservation aware and who contact the reef less may preferentially choose to dive with environmentally ‘accredited’ dive operators; indeed, this assumption partially drives dive operator participation in such programmes.
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Underwater interventions by dive guides have been suggested to be the most successful deterrent to diver contact with reefs (Barker and Roberts 2004). In this study, there was no significant difference in the intervention rates between dive centres of high and low Green Fins compliance. Therefore, we cannot attribute the observed difference in diver reef contact rates to differences in intervention rates between these two groups.
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Studies examining the effect of carrying camera equipment on the frequency of diver contacts with the reef have produced conflicting results.
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Additionally, the administration of a pre-dive briefing can influence diver contact rates underwater (Medio et al. 1997). The Green Fins programme incorporates the use of a pre-dive briefing that emphasises the importance of refraining from contacting the reef, which would be expected to result in lower diver contact rates.
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A concern amongst representatives of the diving industry is the use of muck sticks to manipulate animals unnecessarily—pushing animals out of holes for better viewing, stressing animals to show customers their stress behaviour (e.g. an octopus changing colour), and physically breaking hard coral to be used in photographs.
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When examining the part of the body or dive equipment which made contact with the reef, we found that the majority of contacts were made with fins, in agreement with Krieger and Chadwick (2013) and Rouphael and Inglis (1998).
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It has previously been noted that dive guides customarily perform different roles at dive locations globally; at some locations, they act primarily to lead the dive group around the reef, whilst at others, pairing with and closely supervising individual divers throughout the course of a dive
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this suggests that dive guides carry out the closest supervision during the initial phase of the dive and then switch to a ‘dive leader’ role at the front of a dive group.
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This study provides evidence that the effective implementation of environmentally responsible practices, via programmes designed to reduce diving impacts, may translate to reduced diver reef contacts.
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Many diver characteristics which might intuitively be expected to impact reef contact rates, such as level of qualification and overall experience, were not significant influencing factors in this study, and high versus low levels of Green Fins compliance did not influence the number of interventions made by dive guides underwater.
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For continued economic benefit and conservation of Philippine reef dive locations, we recommend that management measures facilitate high levels of compliance with environmentally responsible diving programmes to reduce the impact of diving on coral reefs.
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This article discusses a study performed at various diving locations in the Philippines to determine whether or not measures taken by Green Fin diving guides were effective in reducing contact with coral reef systems. The study also recorded the average number of contacts with the reef during a dive, as well as the equipment or body part which came into contact with the reef most often, and which actions resulted in the most damage. The study finds that adherence to Green Fin standards or other policies may significantly impact diver behaviors and reduce the level of contact with sensitive coral reefs during SCUBA dives.
