Dynamite fishing near Phuket?

[h90]

well luckily it is not everywhere that bad.....
I remember Chumphon, the Thai Divemaster (without any certificate) brought a lot trash up. One of the staff was complete mad because he found rest of cigarets on one island (they have the bird nests there). And he was mad the southern way (telling he take the gun and kill them next time).
Two Thai students with 5 books about fished were complete mad about the nets in the national park.....
Also complete down at Koh Lipe many things are running wrong but people start to think. Of course always the others are wrong, they from Malaysia, Indonesia, Mynamar..........

So absolute there is hope..... But it will need time and specialy where are many tourists there are Thais from other regions and they just don't care (as well I saw a lot bad things from Farangs).
The question is just if they protect before it is to late?

When I was living in Pattaya Thailand we had the same problem. The locals would regularly use dynamite. It was always so frustrating to see. The idea of conserving nature is not always a priority. I remember a slow day of diving so I spent the day picking up trash on the sea floor. I pulled up a couple of trash bags full of junk brought them onboard. On the way back into port I saw the deck hands throwing everything I had brought up back over the side. Total waste of time. Its just a different outlook.

 

[sailmaryann]

my bet is dynamite. I've seen it in the Philippines and in the Similans 8 years back (right in front of the rangers, there was dynamite fishing going on at the time...).
This should show on the coral though, which gets visibly damaged too.
this is a real problem particularly in some parts of the philippines, where religion prohibits birth control, and where some family heads just have no choice (lack of time, need for immediate reward) but to dynamite fish. i found in the Upper Visayas (Samar/Leyte) that the fishermen knew what they were doing, and were quite sorry at their own situation, but

 

[sailmaryann]

my bet is dynamite. I've seen it in the Philippines and in the Similans 8 years back (right in front of the rangers, there was dynamite fishing going on at the time...).
This should show on the coral though, which gets visibly damaged too.
this is a real problem particularly in some parts of the philippines, where religion prohibits birth control, and where some family heads just have no choice (lack of time, need for immediate reward) but to dynamite fish. i found in the Upper Visayas (Samar/Leyte) that the fishermen knew what they were doing, and were quite sorry at their own situation, but kids need their food, and it's really a lose-lose thing. too bad.

 

[Zippsy]

I think we figured out, based on witnesses' reports of brown cloudy water and dead soft coral in the area that it was a harmful algal bloom (HAB).

 

[Bowmouth]

I think we figured out, based on witnesses' reports of brown cloudy water and dead soft coral in the area that it was a harmful algal bloom (HAB).

The red tide is stretching out all the way to Myanmar and there is NO soft coral dying at any of the sites in the Similans, Surin, Richelieu or Myanmar. In fact the reefs are teeming with life and the soft corals are looking great despite the red algae having been in the water for months now.
It's NOT likely at all the red tide killed the soft corals just at one or two sites and not at any of the other sites.

 

[Zippsy]

so you reckon that all of the sudden there are reports of cyanide fishing, dynamite fishing and HAB's all at once around Phuket and coincidental? Hmmmmm..... I tend to think it's easier to believe that the HAB has stronger concentrations in some areas and therefore affects the marine life to different extents in different places.

 

[h90]

zippsy: what is cyanide fishing?

 

[Bowmouth]

so you reckon that all of the sudden there are reports of cyanide fishing, dynamite fishing and HAB's all at once around Phuket and coincidental? .

No, the only thing I know is that appearently something is very wrong with the soft coral at Hin Daeng and Hin Muang. We can only speculate at this stage what has happened and why the coral is dying. We are no scientists and we haven't any real proof of what went wrong. Dynamite fishing will kill fish, break hard coral and damage some soft corals but not cause soft coral to slowly rot and die. Cyanide fishing will stun and kill some fish and will kill soft and hard coral where the poison made contact with the reef. The red tide we've been experiencing for quite a while now in the Andaman Sea does NOT seem to affect the reefs anywhere but has been associated with the dying of soft corals at Hin Daeng and Hin Muang. I think we shouldn't rush to any conclusions until there are results from water and coral samples taken by marine biologists.

 

[MoonWrasse]

Well, I'm thinking I'll pass on Hin Dang/Muang this year as it sounds like a bad situation down there.

Anyway, it seems like there are fewer divers out on the Phuket-Phi Phi sites this year, making dives nicer there

 

[Zippsy]

zippsy: what is cyanide fishing?

http://pubs.wri.org/pubs_content_text.cfm?ContentID=723
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_fishing

Ain't google great?