Report: Sustainable Diving Practice workshop

For those of you who have been holding yer breath, here is my completely
unbiased report on last Wednesday's Miami workshop.

A little background:

After many years of lip service to ocean conservation, including the
toothless Presidential Executive Order of 1998 establishing the USCRTF
(US Coral Reef Task Force), the Bush administration has finally made
considerable funding available to do something. Most of the moneys are
in the form of grants from 12 federal agencies, primarily NOAA. The
state of Florida departments of Environmental Protection and Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission provide matching money.

Several dozen “green” organizations have joined the feeding frenzy.
Locally, a group called SFCRI, the South Florida Coral Reef Initiative,
has been put together to coordinate activities.

Initially, SFCRI jumped on a lot of pointy-head proposals that were
heavy on study (computer studies to ascertain the probability of the
existence of coral reefs) and light on action. Early stuff partnered
with such friends of the reefs as the Army Corp of Engineers and the
local municipal wastewater managers who held poster shows of research
divers dragging their consoles through the coral.

Partly as a result of pressure from state agencies, which have some
appreciation for the economic value of the dive industry ($7.8 billion
for Monroe through PB counties), the focus has shifted a bit toward the
new buzz, “sustainable practices”. As in, “Is pumping a few billion
cubic feet of inter-reef sand to renourish the beach in front of the
Kennedy compound after every storm a sustainable practice?”

I attended one workshop, “Sustainable Diving and Snorkeling Practices”,
in a three day SFCRI conference in Miami.

This workshop was intended to get dive operators together. Of the
roughly fifty people in the room, six were dive operators. I volunteered
that the low turnout was perhaps in part due to the fact that local
operators are mom & pop operations that can’t just take a day off,
especially when the weather is good, to trek to Miami. They hadn’t
thought of that. I suggested that they needed to go to the operators
one-on-one, which seemed to evoke some agreement. We’ll see.

Other than the half-dozen dive operators, the audience was about equally
split between old, fat, bald grantees and their young, nubile, grad
student female assistants. If there’s a place to pick up dive chicks,
it’s certainly in the research arena.

The presentations.

The program was introduced by Chantal Collier, Coral Reef Program
Manager for FDEP. She started off by stating the “key threats”
identified: (1) land-source pollution, (2) construction, (3) Fishing and
diving, and (4) lack of awareness of the reef resource.

She emphasized the existence of funds available to train dive operators.

The first speaker was Alex Brylske, PADI Project Awareness, “Does Diving
Harm the Environment?”

87% of divers surveyed will pay an average 6.7% premium for “green”
diving operations.

Impact of divers globally is none, but locally significant primarily
from the infrastructure, ie construction, over-concentration of divers
on few sites, bottom paint, toilets, etc.

30 studies of diver impact, findings not very consistent, but agreement
that:

4% of divers do 70% of the damage in the first 10 minutes of their dive
– mostly inexperienced divers dropping to the bottom and adjusting their
gear/buoyancy.

Snorkelers do more damage than divers.

80% of all reef damage is from anchors/chains.

Brylske cited studies that showed that a short briefing that told divers
not to trash the reef resulted in significant reduction in damage. (Doh!
Ya have to tell these assholes not to trash the reef?????)

Bottom line, the divers are not a threat but dive operations are.

Next up was Brian Somebody from CORAL, a 10,000 member not-for-profit
that has done most of its work in exotic Pacific locations.

Long description of “Crystal Ball” software which, when run a million
times (yes) indicates that lots of boats dropping lots of anchors and
divers in a single spot will damage the reef. Ain’t technology grand!

But bottom line was that 0.8% of damage to the reef is from divers.

Reiteration of need to train operators, cost to operators estimated at
about $20k up front then $1k annually. (That’s about a year’s income for
many!).

Third up was Cheva Heck, a cute 90-pounder and a real diver, who is
running the “Blue Star” program in Monroe (the Keys) for NOAA.

(Monroe gets about 1 million divers & snorkelers each year, and the
entire Keys, from the Tortugas to Miami, is in the national sanctuary
giving the Keys some leverage with programs, funding, etc.)

A few years ago, a program was funded called Dive Smart, intended to
educate divers and operators in reef-friendly practices. The program was
designed by contractors who knew nothing about the Keys and not much
about diving, and it was a dismal failure.

Blue Star is a voluntary program with similar goals but organized from
the bottom up. The goal is to get the operators to sign on to good
diving practices, then to use the Blue Star as a national marketing
gimmick for Blue Star operators.

She pointed out that most of the reef damage in the Keys is at the
mooring buoys: inexperienced divers go down the lines and flop around at
the bottom.

(Interesting that the buoys, which were supposed to reduce damage, have
concentrated the damage. Every solution creates new problems.)

So far, 13 operators in the Keys, of more than 60, have signed on to
Blue Star, including our own Jim Wyatt. The greatest resistance is from
the cattle boats, especially around Key West. (Why am I not surprised by
that?)

The discussion period didn’t produce much.

Mini season took a lot of heat. It appears that the 60 plus dive
operators and 112 shops in Monroe are about evenly split. No question it
brings in a lot of money, no question it trashes the reefs. Some
discussion of special mini-season stamps, and/or a lottery for
mini-season stamps.

Anchoring problem: dive and tow boat operators are pretty good about
calling Fisheries when they see someone anchored on the reef, but
Fisheries does not have the manpower to respond to most calls. (Keep
cutting those anchor lines, guys.)

Fisheries is concerned about the impact of the two spearfishing
tournaments, which are apparently growing fast. Seeking comments.

NOAA has lots of funds with matching from the state. National Fish and
Wildlife has funding for coral reef preservation projects, happy with
their “Anchors Away” project.

Afterthoughts:

There was not nearly the call for regulation of and user fees on divers
that I’ve heard in past meetings, but it did come up a few times.
(Potential source of funding if the Democrats ever get back in.)

The focus has definitely shifted from spending money on PhD theses to
spending money on projects that change behavior and practices. But there
were a few comments that some grad students should be working on papers
on how to modify behavior and practices.

So it goes.

Many thanks for that report

Matthias

"mike gray" <scrubadub@att.net> wrote in message
news:MM7sd.87174$7i4.52535@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

> For those of you who have been holding yer breath, here is my completely
> unbiased report on last Wednesday's Miami workshop.

<snip>

Unreal, but perfectly typical.

My dad was a professor of wildlife management, had degree's in ornithology,
mammology, ecosystems sciences, etc. I grew up with birds of prey in our
yard (most had been either shot or hit by cars) requiring daily care,
including the trapping, grinding and making of rat burger to feed them, so
basically I was a master falconer by the time I was 15. I felt that my
experience was valuable, and that I could help with local shelters, so as an
adult I used to volunteer to work with local bird and mammal rescue groups
(plus, I like the critters). Too many fruitloops (for instance, once in a
while it is necessary to euthanize a bird such as a hawk or eagle; try to
explain that to the full blown vegan trust-fund-undergrad, let alone ask
him/her to perform the task). Locally, we tried to get the state and the
feds to do something about the few asshole fishermen floating up and down
the canal shooting seals during the chum run (which are caught, egged and
tossed over the side, contributing significantly to the low DO events that
have been plaguing the lower canal, BTW, speaking of "sustainable
practices"), etc. Worked with a lot of good divers and biologists from WDFW
(we really do have some good folks up here, we are lucky) to close off many
of the underwater structures suitable for fish breeding around Puget Sound
to fishing of any kind, and create Marine Protected Area's. Lots of folks
put a lot of time into Seacrest and Edmonds, literally thousands of man
hours over the years.

http://www.psat.wa.gov/shared/volume2/recreational.pdf

My finding was that these gatherings collect a few genuine people who really
want to do something intelligent and meaningful, and a few who want to
protect their income, NIMBY's, and the majority of the remainder was
comprised of professional students, clueless environmentalists and flower
sniffers who just "want to be involved" (makes for good self aggrandizing
chatter at the scuttlebut on Monday morning).

Same kind of thing has happened at various PNW beaches, where there are
woods and rugged dunes which attract 4 wheel drives, motorcycles, dune
buggies, etc. Continued destruction of the vegetation by "enthusiastic
participants" was first attacked on the environmental level, but since there
are so many loggers in some area's, nothing was done, except a lot of flat
tires, broken noses, stolen Volvo's, etc. All they had to do was stay off
the vegetation, and they could have stayed and played for years. There was
plenty of open dune and sand available, but assholes just cant resist
busting a double striped trail right, dead, straight over the top and
through the center of the vegetation capping a dune. Eventually, the
participants killed all the vegetation, the dunes blew and washed away, and
they have no place to ride. Self eliminating.

What about live boat diving? That's the way we do it up here, and how we did
it when I was down there with Popeye and Cliff a few Thanksgivings ago.

Bryce Christie makes it a natural act.

For the punchline;

A couple weeks ago we were diving Sund Rock. Adrianne is sitting on a rock,
and exactly behind her, about 6 feet in the air on a pole, is a sheet of
plywood, painted bright, gloss white with a black hook and fish symbol
circled in red with a slash through it, Marine Protected Area and NO FISHING
in huge red letters.

The people in the boat (you have to see the PNW Combat Fishermen in all his
glory to appreciate the significant humor potential, plus, only the chum
were running, and they aint fit to eat, a dog wont eat chum salmon, so only
a complete moron, or four of them in this story, would get a boat wet to
catch chum) idle into the beach, over our heads, ignoring the large,
permanent, dive flag on the buoy, and ask her how the fishing is here. Maybe
get her phone number.

She simply smiled, picked her hand up in front of her face and pointed
straight up into the air at the Marine Protected Area sign, directly behind
her and above her head, and then slowly to the dive flag on the buoy and
then to the bubbles on the water.

So then they ask if they can beach the boat and use the porta-potty.

Idiots will trash the reefs, and allow the reefs to be trashed, until they
stop diving, or die, or the reefs are dead.

Scott wrote:

>
> What about live boat diving? That's the way we do it up here, and how we did
> it when I was down there with Popeye and Cliff a few Thanksgivings ago.

From Miami north, that's how all the charter boats do it (we call it
drift diving). In the Keys, moorings were placed in all the popular
spots as the dives there are oriented to inexperienced divers who want a
line to descend and ascend.

Anchors are still a problem with some fishermen and some divers who dive
from private boats, regardless of the fact that it is illegal to anchor
on reefs.

An anchored boat is obvious as all getout, especially when there is any
current, which is almost all the time. Charters and the tow services
call fisheries whenever they see an anchored boat on the reefs, but
theres a slim to none chgance that fisheries will be able to respond in
time, if at all.

Truth is, a lot of boaters actually don't know it's illegal. There is no
licensing or education requirement for boaters in Fla.

"Scott" <pugetsounddiver@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:10r6jfti43angb3@corp.supernews.com...
> "mike gray" <scrubadub@att.net> wrote in message
> news:MM7sd.87174$7i4.52535@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
>> For those of you who have been holding yer breath, here is my completely
>> unbiased report on last Wednesday's Miami workshop.
>
> <snip>
>
> Unreal, but perfectly typical.
>
> My dad was a professor of wildlife management, had degree's in
> ornithology,
> mammology, ecosystems sciences, etc. I grew up with birds of prey in our
> yard (most had been either shot or hit by cars) requiring daily care,
> including the trapping, grinding and making of rat burger to feed them, so
> basically I was a master falconer by the time I was 15. I felt that my
> experience was valuable, and that I could help with local shelters, so as
> an
> adult I used to volunteer to work with local bird and mammal rescue groups
> (plus, I like the critters). Too many fruitloops (for instance, once in a
> while it is necessary to euthanize a bird such as a hawk or eagle; try to
> explain that to the full blown vegan trust-fund-undergrad, let alone ask
> him/her to perform the task). Locally, we tried to get the state and the
> feds to do something about the few asshole fishermen floating up and down
> the canal shooting seals during the chum run (which are caught, egged and
> tossed over the side, contributing significantly to the low DO events that
> have been plaguing the lower canal, BTW, speaking of "sustainable
> practices"), etc. Worked with a lot of good divers and biologists from
> WDFW
> (we really do have some good folks up here, we are lucky) to close off
> many
> of the underwater structures suitable for fish breeding around Puget Sound
> to fishing of any kind, and create Marine Protected Area's. Lots of folks
> put a lot of time into Seacrest and Edmonds, literally thousands of man
> hours over the years.
>
> http://www.psat.wa.gov/shared/volume2/recreational.pdf
>
> My finding was that these gatherings collect a few genuine people who
> really
> want to do something intelligent and meaningful, and a few who want to
> protect their income, NIMBY's, and the majority of the remainder was
> comprised of professional students, clueless environmentalists and flower
> sniffers who just "want to be involved" (makes for good self aggrandizing
> chatter at the scuttlebut on Monday morning).
>
> Same kind of thing has happened at various PNW beaches, where there are
> woods and rugged dunes which attract 4 wheel drives, motorcycles, dune
> buggies, etc. Continued destruction of the vegetation by "enthusiastic
> participants" was first attacked on the environmental level, but since
> there
> are so many loggers in some area's, nothing was done, except a lot of flat
> tires, broken noses, stolen Volvo's, etc. All they had to do was stay off
> the vegetation, and they could have stayed and played for years. There was
> plenty of open dune and sand available, but assholes just cant resist
> busting a double striped trail right, dead, straight over the top and
> through the center of the vegetation capping a dune. Eventually, the
> participants killed all the vegetation, the dunes blew and washed away,
> and
> they have no place to ride. Self eliminating.
>
> What about live boat diving? That's the way we do it up here, and how we
> did
> it when I was down there with Popeye and Cliff a few Thanksgivings ago.
>
> Bryce Christie makes it a natural act.
>
> For the punchline;
>
> A couple weeks ago we were diving Sund Rock. Adrianne is sitting on a
> rock,
> and exactly behind her, about 6 feet in the air on a pole, is a sheet of
> plywood, painted bright, gloss white with a black hook and fish symbol
> circled in red with a slash through it, Marine Protected Area and NO
> FISHING
> in huge red letters.
>
> The people in the boat (you have to see the PNW Combat Fishermen in all
> his
> glory to appreciate the significant humor potential, plus, only the chum
> were running, and they aint fit to eat, a dog wont eat chum salmon, so
> only
> a complete moron, or four of them in this story, would get a boat wet to
> catch chum) idle into the beach, over our heads, ignoring the large,
> permanent, dive flag on the buoy, and ask her how the fishing is here.
> Maybe
> get her phone number.
>
> She simply smiled, picked her hand up in front of her face and pointed
> straight up into the air at the Marine Protected Area sign, directly
> behind
> her and above her head, and then slowly to the dive flag on the buoy and
> then to the bubbles on the water.
>
> So then they ask if they can beach the boat and use the porta-potty.
>
> Idiots will trash the reefs, and allow the reefs to be trashed, until they
> stop diving, or die, or the reefs are dead.
>
>
Amen to that, Scott. Unfortunately, you can substitute "reefs" for; road
laws (laws in general), healthcare system, legal system, political system,
or "respect for other people", (I'm sure I missed a few) and come to the
same conclusion. It seems there is a shallow end of the gene pool that
does not understand, or care, or both, about anything other than the last
ten minutes. Unfortunately, this can also apply to the deeper end as well.
The only way is for the clueless people to win the Darwin Award.

George

"mike gray" <scrubadub@att.net> wrote in message
news:aJQsd.94577$7i4.79599@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
(snip)>
> Truth is, a lot of boaters actually don't know it's illegal. There is no
> licensing or education requirement for boaters in Fla.

Seems that would be the place to start then. There was a licencing
requirement started up here and there is a test that must be taken. I have
a friend teaching the course that helps boaters to pass. She's also a dive
instructor and she loves Florida. I'm sure she'd be willing to come down
there and start getting things organized. ;^)

"chilly" <slarson@shaw.canada> wrote in message
news:sQTsd.419945$Pl.55984@pd7tw1no...
>
> "mike gray" <scrubadub@att.net> wrote in message
> news:aJQsd.94577$7i4.79599@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> (snip)>
>> Truth is, a lot of boaters actually don't know it's illegal. There is no
>> licensing or education requirement for boaters in Fla.
>
> Seems that would be the place to start then. There was a licencing
> requirement started up here and there is a test that must be taken. I
> have
> a friend teaching the course that helps boaters to pass. She's also a
> dive
> instructor and she loves Florida. I'm sure she'd be willing to come down
> there and start getting things organized. ;^)

Effectively immediately, there's a $1,000 certification fee and one month
mandatory training for any activist that wants to come from anyplace else to
"help" us with our reef protection problem. The training will be done
during the tourist season in a hotel in Key West. Room, board and
educational materials are extra. There's a $100 certification fee required
for anybody not from Florida, to even suggest such a thing. The fee
increased to $200 if they live more than a thousand miles from the S.
Florida reefs.

Make your check out to Mike and Lee's Reef Protection Enterprises. Let me
know if you need an address to send the check to.

Without intending personal insult to you chilly, your suggestion and
approach is part of a much bigger problem. The last thing we need is more
clueless people reacting to something that seems to make sense, without
knowing whether it really does or not. We don't need more environmental
activists, we don't need more fees, certification or even educational
opportunities. What we need is for people to give what they already know
about how to be environmentally sensitive at least close to the same
attention as they do the recreational activities they are pursuing while
doing their damage.

I find it interesting that the group Mike visited discovered that reef
damage is concentrated around mooring buoys. I imagine that the Google
skilled can find where I reported that, and got in a rather lengthy argument
about it, several years ago. As good as the mooring buoys are about keeping
anchors off the reefs, their net effect is to concentrate divers in a single
area, doing many times the damage that the anchors of a few boats that would
find the same place, without buoys, would do. It's a very good example of
something that sounds like a good idea, that does more damage than good.

The cruise ships that threw plastic trash bags into the ocean, or the ones
that pump contaminated oil and fuel out of their tanks and bilges, aren't
ignorant of the laws or effects. They simply don't care as much about the
damage they do as they care about making lots of money. It's that kind of
attitude that has to change.

Lee

Lee Bell wrote:
> "chilly" <slarson@shaw.canada> wrote in message
> news:sQTsd.419945$Pl.55984@pd7tw1no...
>>
>> "mike gray" <scrubadub@att.net> wrote in message
>> news:aJQsd.94577$7i4.79599@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>> (snip)>
>>> Truth is, a lot of boaters actually don't know it's illegal. There is no
>>> licensing or education requirement for boaters in Fla.
>>
>> Seems that would be the place to start then. There was a licencing
>> requirement started up here and there is a test that must be taken. I
>> have
>> a friend teaching the course that helps boaters to pass. She's also a
>> dive
>> instructor and she loves Florida. I'm sure she'd be willing to come down
>> there and start getting things organized. ;^)
>
> Effectively immediately, there's a $1,000 certification fee and one month
> mandatory training for any activist that wants to come from anyplace else to
> "help" us with our reef protection problem. The training will be done
> during the tourist season in a hotel in Key West. Room, board and
> educational materials are extra. There's a $100 certification fee required
> for anybody not from Florida, to even suggest such a thing. The fee
> increased to $200 if they live more than a thousand miles from the S.
> Florida reefs.
>
> Make your check out to Mike and Lee's Reef Protection Enterprises. Let me
> know if you need an address to send the check to.

We prefer cash.

> Without intending personal insult to you chilly, your suggestion and
> approach is part of a much bigger problem. The last thing we need is more
> clueless people reacting to something that seems to make sense, without
> knowing whether it really does or not. We don't need more environmental
> activists, we don't need more fees, certification or even educational
> opportunities. What we need is for people to give what they already know
> about how to be environmentally sensitive at least close to the same
> attention as they do the recreational activities they are pursuing while
> doing their damage.
>
> I find it interesting that the group Mike visited discovered that reef
> damage is concentrated around mooring buoys. I imagine that the Google
> skilled can find where I reported that, and got in a rather lengthy argument
> about it, several years ago. As good as the mooring buoys are about keeping
> anchors off the reefs, their net effect is to concentrate divers in a single
> area, doing many times the damage that the anchors of a few boats that would
> find the same place, without buoys, would do. It's a very good example of
> something that sounds like a good idea, that does more damage than good.
>
> The cruise ships that threw plastic trash bags into the ocean, or the ones
> that pump contaminated oil and fuel out of their tanks and bilges, aren't
> ignorant of the laws or effects. They simply don't care as much about the
> damage they do as they care about making lots of money. It's that kind of
> attitude that has to change.

Out of sight, out of mind. Too many, including fishermen, think the
ocean is like a big landfill, a place to dump whatever and nicely
covered up with a thick layer of sea water. That goes for the
municipalities, too, who dump their wastewater in pipes that go a mile
out - right to the reef line - and think it has simply vanished.