eco friendly live aboards, is there such a thing?

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By the way, nobody said that posts about shark fining are trolls.

I'm sorry, but I believe you're deflecting the issue, which you yourself brought up, by diverting attention to shark finning. The only parallel I can think of in that instance would be if one shark finning operation criticized another for wasteful practices.

Or perhaps if someone developed a land-based diving operation in Halmahera, where there was previously only untouched land, and made the case that by doing so, and mitigating it by planting trees elsewhere, that they were improving the land beyond the condition in which they originally found it. If that is the case, one could say also that coconut oil plantations caused no harm to the native jungle, because the farmers planted trees, did they not? No problem that native jungle has become a monoculture.

My apologies ... I do not make this point facetiously ... I simply have difficulty finding your OP defensible. Where millions of hectares of jungle have been clear cut for export of timber, a handful of wooden liveaboards are still, in my opinion (as a former boatbuilder), less destructive of resources, and have less total impact, than the production of either FRP (fiberglass) or steel/aluminum equivalents. You have to look beyond the mere act of cutting the tree and consider all of the operations involved in producing the materials and fabricating each type of vessel, and the after effect of each operation on the environment. Or is it that, as a land-based resort owner, you have difficulty with the idea of liveaboards in general?

What of the potential of the purportedly illegal Chinese iron mine which may begin operations on Bangka, just up the watery road from (one of) your resorts? What if that iron ore was reincarnated as a steel liveaboard destined for North Sulawesi? Would that be preferable to a wooden boat?

Admittedly, I'm posing questions, and no answers. But again, these questions arise as a result of your original post. I believe in the end that a clear answer is, well ... not very clear.
 
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highdesert, Divers Lodge Lembeh was built on an old, previously burned down coconut garden. We used 1 hectare to build the Divers Lodge and preserved 24 hectares. Weda Resort is built on a former logging camp site and logging harbor, without anything growing on. We use 3 hectares for the resort and are preserving neighboring 300 hectares of primary forest. At least for the trees we keep the balance at the proper site. We protect and plant far, far more than we ever consumed.
But what you say about mono cultures is right. If there ever happens such a thing as reforesting here it is mainly with fast growing species. The diversity of the original primary forest is probably gone forever unless the forest has been logged very selectively. As a former boat builder you surely can tell how many trees you need to build a 50 meter vessel? Could be interesting to put a number to this discussion.
I sincerely not understand that any diver in the world would be upset if we would take healthy, living corals from the reefs to build a resort, but that many think it is not a big deal damaging the last forests for boat building for dive tourism.
 
Diving is ecologically unsound.

The ampere draw on a 5 cfm compressor is ridiculous.
 
When I lived in Singapore we had the haze. Thick enough to make you yearn for Los Angeles on a bad day. Sometimes it came from Sumatra, sometimes from Kalimantan, depending on the wind direction. Its source, as I understand it, was the wholesale torching of Indonesian forest to make way for agriculture. On a scale so immense that the entire region was choking from the smoke. That doesn't excuse irresponsibility elsewhere, but the scale of destruction seems to dwarf whatever liveaboards are destroying.
 
Indah, I believe that you are stomping on ants while the elephants are stampeding---the minimal amount of trees used for Indo liveaboards cannot compare to the amount exported en mass or burned to farm. Your altruistic exterior appears to me to hide a self interested core.
 
How many is minimal amount? How many trees for one 50 meter vessel? This compared to the amount of trees that were growing 20 years ago in Indonesia, compared to what is left now or what will be left over in another 20 years? Twenty years ago it was not a big deal, in another 20 years it will be, I am afraid. My hope is, that from now on, companies that want to start operating a wooden live a board in Indonesia, include in their investments the costs of compensating for the forest that has to be logged. That's all.
Altruism: "The belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others." Does not say much about trees and even less about me. Sorry.
 
Indah, I believe that you are stomping on ants while the elephants are stampeding---the minimal amount of trees used for Indo liveaboards cannot compare to the amount exported en mass or burned to farm. Your altruistic exterior appears to me to hide a self interested core.

Maybe, Probably... but raising awareness and actually starting somewhere in terms of conservation is better than nothing. Especially when this is something we, as divers can directly influence. Personally i would feel a little better knowing that a boat (designed to take tourists around to see the purdy fishies, no less) I was on was built from reclaimed wood, or that the owners were involved in some sort of conservation effort to try and balance out the impact of their/our leisure activities- which, as we all know, are pretty damn hard on the environment.
 

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