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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