[Coral-List] Help Us Understand the Beauty of Coral Reefs

[Douglas Fenner]

A few more references that may be relevant:

Lin, B. Close encounters of the worst kind: reforms needed to curb coral
reef damage by recreational divers. Coral Reefs 40, 1429–1435 (2021)



Anthony B. Rouphael & Mahmoud Hanafy (2007) An Alternative Management
Framework to Limit the Impact of SCUBA Divers on Coral Assemblages, Journal
of Sustainable Tourism, 15:1, 91-103



Caparrós-Martínez, J.L., Martínez-Vázquez, R.M. & de Pablo Valenciano, J.
Analysis and global research trends on nautical tourism and green coastal
infrastructures: the case of coral reefs and seagrass meadows. Environ Sci
Eur 34, 33 (2022).


Lachs, L. and Oñate-Casado, J. 2020. Fisheries and tourism: Social,
economic and ecological tradeoffs in coral reef systems. Pages 243-260 in
Jungblut, S., Liebich, V., and Bode-Dalby, M.   *YOUMARES 9- The Oceans,
Our Research, Our Future, Proceedings of the 2018 Conference in YOUng
MArine RESearcher in Oldenberg, Germany*.  Springer.


Cheers, Doug

On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 4:45 PM Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
wrote:

>     I think Alina's final question is a good one.  A quick search in
> Google Scholar on "effects of diving on coral reefs review" produced the
> following references to review articles on this topic (I've just read
> abstracts, and small parts of these):
> A Review of SCUBA Diving Impacts and Implication for Coral Reefs
> Conservation and Tourism Management
> Siti Zulaiha Zainal Abidin and Badaruddin Mohamed
> SHS Web of Conferences, 12 (2014) 01093
>
> Sumanapala, D., Dimmock, K., & Wolf, I. D. (2022). A review of ecological
> impacts from recreational SCUBA diving: Current evidence and future
> practice. *Tourism and Hospitality Research*, *0*(0).
>
> Vinicius J. Giglio, Osmar J. Luiz, Carlos E.L. Ferreira,
> Ecological impacts and management strategies for recreational diving: A
> review,
> Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 256, 2020, 109949
>
> Roche et al, 2016. Recreational diving impacts on coral reefs and the
> adoption of environmentally responsible within the scuba diving industry.
> Environmental Management 58: 107-116.
>
> Roche cites 3 papers that reported less coral cover on more heavily dived
> sites than on less dived sites.
> Giglio cites 2 papers that reported "high levels" of reef damage at places
> with intensive diving.
>
>     I don't think all the world's coral reef diving impacts are the same
> as Mark described from one spot in the Philippines.  My experience in
> Cozumel, where diving has long been intense, was not like that at all.
> Cozumel had 2000 dives per year on 15 miles of reef.  Some papers have
> recommended no more than about 6000 dives a year, but that may be on a
> single dive site, I haven't looked at the source papers to check that.  I
> haven't been back for over 20 years, and I'm told that corals have declined
> there some and sponges increased, but if that's all that has happened, it
> may be in better shape than Florida and most of the Caribbean, judging by
> reports.  That said, Cozumel had as a major advantage that the town and all
> the hotels were well north of the reefs where the diving was, and the
> Yucatan current moves briskly along the reefs going from south to north.
> The sewage plant I was told was well north of town, so that effluent was
> carried away from the reefs.  The island is semi-consolidated carbonate
> sand, extremely porous, there is no surface water, little soil, and no
> agriculture so terrestrial sedimentation is not a problem.  The reefs are
> all protected and it appeared that there was essentially no poaching, and
> those reefs have some of the world's highest reef fish biomass in spite of
> not being so remote that people can't get to them (but sharks are rare).
> So Cozumel is quite unusual.  I've commented before that Cozumel corals
> showed recovery over time following Hurricane Gilbert, in spite of the fact
> that the reefs had heavy diving traffic.  To me, that suggests that it is
> at least POSSIBLE for diving to have a lower impact than hurricanes (the
> damage Gilbert did to Cozumel's diving reefs was not very great, since
> waves on the west side of Cozumel where the reefs are had limited space to
> build (called "fetch") between there and the Yucatan Peninsula.  Gilbert's
> waves were about 7 feet tall on the west shore of Cozumel and 40 feet high
> on the east coast I was told.)
>
>    Obviously, the effects of dive tourism are not just from the diving
> itself, but can be from nutrients and sediments and fishing, and other
> things.  If restaurants serve fresh reef fish, then even if they don't come
> from the local reefs they come from reefs and the impact is just not on the
> local reefs.  And the flights to get to remote reefs add to climate change
> problems just as all tourism and business and family visit and other types
> of flights do.
>
>   How are popular dive locations that are heavily dived doing compared to
> similar places which have light if any diving?  Trends would be most
> useful, I would think, since diving is often most intense on some of the
> best reef.  We can't always assume that a heavily dived reef and a lightly
> dived reef started out the same before the diving, but trends can help us
> figure it out.
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 4:06 AM Alina Szmant via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
>> Hello Mark:
>>
>> In 1993 I helped Bob Ginsburg with the Global Aspects of corals Reefs:
>> Health, Hazards and History colloquium he organized at the University of
>> Miami.  Researchers came from all over and presented their case studies.
>> On the 3rd day of the Colloquium there was a session about measures and
>> policies that could be used to help save coral reefs and ecotourism was
>> applauded by many as the solution for a number of reasons.  I clearly
>> recall feeling alarmed at the prospect of millions of people flocking to
>> thousands of hotels built along 100s of km of coral reef coastline and
>> spoke out against the concept. Boy was I shot down. The economics of
>> developing coral reef ecotourism to help all of the poor people living near
>> coral reefs won the day!!! This was going to help prevent overfishing the
>> nearby reefs because the locals would have have new ways of making a living
>> rather than depending on coral reefs for food, barter goods and building
>> materials.
>>
>>  How did that work out for coral reefs?????
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr. Alina M. Szmant,  CEO
>> CISME Instruments LLC
>>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Mark Tupper via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
>> Date: 5/27/23 5:05 PM (GMT-05:00)
>> To: Phillip Dustan <phil.dustan at gmail.com>
>> Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Help Us Understand the Beauty of Coral Reefs
>>
>> Phil, you hit it on the head. People are more likely to exploit what they
>> love than protect it. Beautiful reefs, beaches, etc draw people like a
>> magnet, leading to hotels, restaurants, dive shops, glass-bottom boat
>> tours, increased fishing pressure to support said hotels and restaurants,
>> sewage, plastic and other debris, and habitat destruction from coastal
>> development.
>>
>> I watched this happen over a decade in Coron, Philippines. When I started
>> surveys there in 2007, there were 3 hotels, a handful of tour operators,
>> and maybe 30 cars on the island. By 2017, there were 53 hotels, several
>> dozen tour operators, and about 3500 cars. The nearby reefs in Coron Bay
>> that were stunning in 2007 were mostly trashed by 2017. I had to travel at
>> least an hour to find healthy reefs with decent fish biomass.
>>
>> This same pattern is repeated globally. Coron is just one of many sites
>> that has been "loved to death". Not to sound too flippant, but perhaps we
>> should portray reefs as dangerous, nasty, scary places so people leave
>> them
>> alone.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> On Sat, 27 May 2023, 12:02 Phillip Dustan via Coral-List, <
>> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>>
>> >  I Agree. I was a co-author on this paper. My photo time-series of
>> > Carysfort Reef were used to help validate the algorithm.
>> > https://biospherefoundation.org/project/coral-reef-change/
>> >
>> > However, there is a greater logical flaw in your thinking. For years the
>> > mantra has been "People only protect what they love"
>> > Cousteau popularized the idea and he always believed that it worked but
>> I
>> > think it is fair to say that the current state of affairs is that either
>> > people do not love reefs or the idea is false.
>> > Everyone treats coral reefs as a resource that provides goods and
>> services
>> > to humans when in fact reefs need all their productivity to maintain
>> > themselves.
>> > Reefs are living processes and that is what makes them beautiful to
>> humans,
>> > a healthy reef glows with life.
>> > This can be quantified with image processing but that does not seem to
>> add
>> > to their conservation unfortunately.
>> > Guess they need more than the perception of love to be allowed to exist
>> in
>> > the Anthropocene..........
>> > Phil
>> >
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