[Coral-List] Getting old is no fun.

Tue Nov 13 16:36:28 UTC 2018

Mark,
I think many of us have had similar experiences with the “shifting baselines syndrome”, but you have hit on an approach which could serve to remedy the situation if we could just get dive operators to buy into it. I’ve recently been discussing this issue with a dive industry insider from Australia who was complaining about the ill effects of media headlines such as this: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/since-2016-half-the-coral-in-the-great-barrier-reef-has-perished/558302/ My argument was basically why can’t the diving tourism industry seize the opportunity and turn this from a negative into an advantage for themselves AND the GBR?  In the end, we all want the same thing, so instead of dive operators entrenching themselves in denial in an attempt to keep tourists coming, use those shifting baselines to entice divers by promoting experiences that offer real time exposure to the realities of what is happening to the reef. Show divers the wonders of the reef, but also use the opportunity to develop a constituency for protecting the GBR from the ravages of climate change (and other stressors) by pointing out those areas which have been impacted by bleaching, storm surge and COTs.  Shifting baselines have always been a problem when it comes to fully understanding coral reef health. We need to work on overcoming that obstacle and in the process everybody wins, including dive operators, divers and (hopefully) the reef itself.

Regards,
Steve Mussman

Sent from my iPad

> On Nov 9, 2018, at 9:38 AM, Mark Tupper <Mark.Tupper at utt.edu.tt> wrote:
> 
> Living in Guam in the early 2000's, I noticed that a couple of the more responsible dive operators actually took advantage of the shifting baseline syndrome to help conserve healthy reefs. They would take the larger boats full of newbies to a long-dead area of reef and let them thrash around on the dead coral and marvel at the little damselfish and wrasses. The newbies would come up saying how amazing and beautiful the reef was. The experienced divers with better buoyancy control and a better idea of what a reef should look like, could pay more to go in smaller groups to healthier reefs with live coral and big fish.
> 
> Mark Tupper | The University of Trinidad and Tobago
> Programme Professor | Centre for Maritime and Ocean Studies
> Chaguaramas Campus | Tel: (868) 642-8888 Ext#22126 | Mobile: (868) 748-6755
> mark.tupper at utt.edu.tt | www.utt.edu.tt
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Coral-List [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Charles Delbeek
> Sent: Wednesday, 7 November 2018 3:44 PM
> To: John Ware <jware at erols.com>
> Cc: deaneware at yahoo.com; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov; Sale at uwindsor.ca
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Getting old is no fun.
> 
> Sadly that is a common occurrence, and not just with reefs.
> 
> 
> *J. Charles Delbeek, M.Sc.*Curator, Steinhart Aquarium California Academy of Sciences
> 
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> 
>> On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 9:43 AM John Ware <jware at erols.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Peter and List,
>> 
>> Peter Sale's recent comment, extracted below:
>> 
>> "...that over the next decade or so, the world is going to lose a lot
>> of coral reef scientists along with our memories of what reefs could
>> be like in a Holocene ocean that no longer exists."
>> 
>> This reminded me of a recent trip my wife and I made to Curacao.  We
>> have been diving ~40 years, maybe not long by the standards of many
>> coral reef scientists, but long enough to have seen many changes to our reefs.
>> 
>> We were on a boat with quite a number of much younger divers (it seems
>> everyone is much younger these days).  When we came up my wife's first
>> comment was that "It was like diving on a cemetery!"  However, the
>> younger divers were raving about the beautiful reef referring to
>> algal-covered mounds that were once live coral.
>> 
>> John
>> 
>> --
>> 
>>  John R. Ware, PhD
>>  President
>>  SeaServices, LLC
>>  302 N. Mule Deer Pt.
>>  Payson, AZ 85541, USA
>>  928 478-6358
>>  jware at erols.com
>>  http://www.seaservices.org
>> 
>>   Become a member of the International Society for Reef Studies
>>   http://www.coralreefs.org
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