RV: Need information on carrying capacity

Pedro Alcolado alcolado at ama.cu
Fri Feb 7 12:43:31 EST 2003


> Thanks very much, Duncan. It is surprising to know that a coral reef
diving
> spot visited by 25000 diver in one year still healthy, when in general
> recomendations in litterature on carrying capacity do not exceed 10000,
with
> the exception of  San Andres, Colombia, with 29000 (Gallo et al. in prep.;
> which also surprised me). You are right about taking more care about
> external stress sources (pollution from tourist resorts). Our Environment
> Agency is aware about that and we have officially implemented EIAs and
> licensing since 1997, which take into account this issue. The problem is
> that we are preparing official general regulations for diving even in
places
> quite far for tourist resorts, and we think that even having very good
diver
> behaviour regulations and compliance, it would be convenient to set a
> precautionary limit in the yearly amount of divers in a dive spot, in oder
> to avoid eventual overcrowding by some local turoperators. We have
> recommended no more than 4000 diver per year per site, but hearing you
> figure I wonder (and worry about) wether we are really limiting the
> potential income  of country tourist dive bussiness with this relatively
low
> recommended figure.
> Thank you very much again, and please keep helping us on the issue. I send
a
> copy of this message to Reynaldo Estrada, Director of the National Center
of
> Protected Areas (CNAP), who is leading the preparation of the dive
> regulations, to keep him informed about your interesting comments.
> Regards,
> Pedro,
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Duncan MacRae <solutions at cozm.co.uk>
> To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 6:53 AM
> Subject: Re: Need information on carrying capacity
>
>
> > Dear Pedro,
> >
> > I did an extensive study on carrying capacity on Bonaire last year (as
yet
> > unpublished). I looked at 40 sites and the amount of damage around the
> > mooring buoys. Some sites had in excess of 25000 divers visiting them
and
> > showed far higher diversity and greater 'health' than other sites with
> very
> > few divers. If you would like to know more, do not hesitate to contact
me.
> >
> > I suggest that you are very careful using diver numbers as a management
> > tool, it has tended to open up a large can of worms. Better would be the
> > number of tourists that the local wastewater treatment plants of the
area
> > can handle.....
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Duncan R. MacRae
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Pedro Alcolado" <alcolado at ama.cu>
> > To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 10:32 PM
> > Subject: Need information on carrying capacity
> >
> >
> > > Dear Coral lister,
> > >
> > > I need to get information about other papers than Hawskin's and
Roberts'
> > > =
> > > (1997) about carrying capacity in coral reef diving. I am
participating
> > > =
> > > in the elaboration of tourist diving regulations, and so far I have =
> > > Haskin's and Roberts' figures of 5000-6000 divers/site/year. I think
it
> > > =
> > > would be good a figure for begining that could be revised an adjusted
=
> > > after subsequent monitoring, but I would like to know about other =
> > > alternative numbers. I would appreciate to receive that information,
as
> > > =
> > > well as any relevant comment on the issue.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Pedro
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~
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> > >
> > >
> >
> > ~~~~~~~
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> >
>

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