What Would You Do?

[TracyN]

I would most definitely have a discussion with them on the surface. That kind of stuff gets me angry.

 

[John_B]

What would Mike Nelson do?

 

[archiebald]

I am sure he won't mind me re-posting his email here.

Reply from Lee Webber, President of MDA Guam

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[FONT=&quot]Dear Mr. A***** --- Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts and observations during your time diving with us here at MDA. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We certainly appreciate your business and even more so your comments and suggestions toward improving our services to our customers.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You are correct in that here are some of these things that we really have little to no control over. That said we do have the ability to share your observations with certain tour operators in the hopes that they will take conservation of our reefs as seriously as do we.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]On the fishing issue I am not in disagreement with you that it is not the best thing to be doing and I will discuss that with our boat operations folks as well. There is a time and place for everything.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Geoff and Chris are very good guides and caring divers. It is not surprising that they would be of assistance to you as I have witnessed them doing the same for others many times.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Again thank you for your thoughtful comments and we look forward to seeing you back at MDA in the future.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Si Yu’us Ma’åse’,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Lee Webber[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]President[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Micronesian Divers Association[/FONT]
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[OtherHalf]

I'd confront. Probably on the surface. But I'm a confrontational type of person. The letter was well played. Glad you got a response. A few posts on travel sites would probably help drive the conversation concept home for the dive ops.

 

[Searcaigh]

What would you have done?

Clear my sinuses over the side when they surfaced

 

[DiverGuam]

Worth pointing you to Chris's company since you liked his work, and he does it for a living, and is open to all markets not just Japanese:

WELCOME TO LET'S DIVE GUAM!  We hope you enjoy our website. English & Japanese text.

(The MDA boat crew, though is all going to quit if they end up not being able to throw out lines between dive sites.)

 

[beanojones]

When I review my photos of my dives, there are actually very few fish to be seen.

This is a fairly common misconception on what causes changes to fish populations. Hand fishing (taking octopus, spearfishing, pole-spearing, etc.) causes almost no change to fish populations. Commercial net fishing, long line fishing, etc causes major changes.

If anything, no one who does not catch fish themselves should be ever eating fish, because by eating fish caught by commercial operations you are guaranteeing wasteful by-catch killing, on a ecosphere changing level. In other words, the boat crew actually lives off the sea, and protects it. You are just part of a mechanized ecosphere destruction machine if you eat fish. If they catch and eat, they are doing that in favor of mechanized food production. If you manage to stop them, you are doing a bad, ecologically damaging thing.

It's kind of like complaining about hunters, but eating commercially bred livestock. One is a clear good for the environment, the other is utterly destructive and causes worldwide climate change.

But what you see in the places damaged by World War II fighting is more the result of the enormous lingering presence of heavy metals in the water. The EPA goes to Micronesia regularly, and for instance in Guam and Saipan, it will be at least a hundred years before extensive reef formation and fish population recover from both the fighting during the war, and the subsequent dumping after the war to clear land for bases, and in general to recover to civlian life.

And that would be in an ideal world where no one used cars. Because the runoff from the cars themselves, and the roads we build for the cars to play on, cause long term permanent pH changes that basically guarantee huge drops is fish populations. You went to Guam on a plane, and road to the boat dock in a car, and stayed in a hotel, all of which is the basic ongoing depression of the fish population. It's not from the crew catching anything by hand, or the guys kicking a tiny section of reef, or even torturing a sea star. A hundred guides, even if they were doing their damnedest to destroy all the reef they can, won't do a thing to affect anything but maybe the tiny bit you see.

But the cars and planes you used to get there, and their poisons affect all the parts of ocean anywhere near the islands.

This thread and my long post in it say it better:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/hawaii/422497-guide-handling-octopus.html

Bascially it comes down to this. We on the islands catching out own meals, and not transporting them from thousands of miles away on mechanized farms, understand what being ecologically conscious actually is.

No one who does not catch or grow their own food is doing anything ecologically sensible with regards to food. It's like beach cleanups, which takes the rich people's trash on dump in on poor people's land. That's not ecological sensitivity, that's rich people forching their will on the less fortunate.

You may well be able to force the boat crew to have to stop fishing. But you if you do, you do something bad, and something ecologically destructive, not something good, unless you feel what you see is more important than the actual health of the planet. But that's the level of ecology most people practice, so you would not be alone.

You can demand a Potemkin Village, and maybe even get it. That's what mainlanders/colonizers have been getting from the islands from a long time.

 

[Agility]

Thank you beanojones

btw: your status line is wrong, you just proved the opposite

 

[Nirvana]

beanojones,

As much merit as your thoughts deserve, I think you are missing the issue. No doubt the way commercial fishing done today is destructive, as is the pollution from industry and cars. But if we condition resolving one problem to ending all the major issues affecting the world, nothing will ever get done.

The people playing with marine animals and destroying corals are doing real damage to the ecosystem. It may not be as bad as what some completely unrelated people do get food on the supermarkets but the fact remains that what they are doing is in disagreement to the behavior most people would consider morally correct and compatible with the purpose of scuba diving, if not in direct confront to the laws of where they were diving.

In addition, I would argue that people who believe that their enjoyment on a holiday warrants the killing of sections of reef would be the most difficult to convince that they should change their feeding habits and restrict the food they buy to preserve some corals and fish somewhere they have never been. Restricting what dive ops allow their customers to do serves the purpose of showing which is the acceptable interaction with marine life, for instance of minimal intervention and of preservation. The extension of this attitude towards pressure on better commercial fishing practices is surely, much more feasible than the other way around.

The same rationale can be applied to the fishing practices of the boat crew. It is not that what they are doing is wrong. But what many, myself included, believe is that the message that should be passed to divers is that they are on that boat to observe and interact in a non-aggressive manner with the environment. It is easier to convey the message if the crew is not fishing during diving activities. Of course, if there are people diving to spearfish, there would probably be no sense in this limitation. On this particular case, I repeat, it is simply a matter of sending the least ambiguous message possible, assuming the dive op is interested in sending one.

Therefore, in summation, those destructive activities performed by other divers that the OP mentioned should be explicitly disallowed by the dive operator. The fact that worse things are done in the world does not change their nature. About the fishing be the boat crew, it may not be destructive or wrong, but not doing during dive operations it would make it easier for the crew to set their stance on preservation clear to their customers.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

I am with those who suggest reporting it but also think if raised properly, you can speak to the offenders about their conduct. You do not have to confrontational or accusatory in doing so. Perhaps you could ask if they enjoyed their dive, what did they see, what did they do. Then you could comment on how you saw part of their activity and seemed some of the group were kicking the reef and kicking up silt, which can settle on the coral and do it harm as well. You could mention you hope they and everyone else on the boat can enjoy their dives AND be mindful of the reef and the marine environment too.
Most of the time a direct approach has value, but not all the time. So file away the "pee in their dry bag alternative.
DivemasterDennis