"Observations show an average 260 touches per one hour dive for a party of four."

[tursiops]

Here are some more articles about divers and reef damage.
If you are only going to read one, Rouphael and inglis is a classic.
Mostly, the punch lines are:

• Yes, divers damage reefs. Mostly by the fins.
• The damage is worse by obsessed photographers than by non-obsessed photographers.
• The damage is worse by photographers than non-photographers.
• The damage is arguably worse by men than women. (Beware the male photographer!)
• The damage is worse by the environmentally unaware, and those with no buoyancy control.
• An environmental briefing by the dive operator can help.
• Buoyancy training can help.
• HOWEVER, the damage is relatively minor compared to other kinds of reef damaging things, like global warming, pollution, disease, anchoring, bomb-fishing, etc. This doesn't get divers off the hook, of course; "relatively minor" does not mean negligible or unimportant.

Some additional citations (I can't get at the articles themselves, just abstracts) are:

Nola H.L.Barker, Callum M.Roberts
Scuba diver behaviour and the management of diving impacts on coral reefs
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2004.03.021

Junko Toyoshima, Kazuo Nadaoka Importance of environmental briefing and buoyancy control on reducing negative impacts of SCUBA diving on coral reefs
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.06.018

D.Medioa, R.F.G.Ormond, M.Pearson
Effect of briefings on rates of damage to corals by scuba divers
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3207(96)00074-2

Julie P. Hawkins, Callum M. Roberts,David Kooistra, Ken Buchan & Susan White
Sustainability of Scuba Diving Tourism on Coral Reefs of Saba
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08920750500217518

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13683500.2011.604407

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13683500.2010.545370

 

[El Graduado]

There have been a good number of posts on this forum expressing disbelief in the amount of “coral impacts” counted during scientific studies done while observing tourists diving on coral reefs. Most of these posts were expressions of “personal beliefs” and did not present any scientific rebuttal. It is this kind of speculation and posting of personal “feelings” or “beliefs” as rebuttals that make me go on the internet and look up what the real story is.

First, let me state that I am doing this just to add links (EDIT: I just saw the previous post with the links. Great job Tursiops!) and images of some scientific data to the discussion, not to take part in the argument. I am sure y’all can find things to argue about in the data, or find more data or studies to support your positions. Second, I did not spend a long time compiling this data. There are plenty of studies out there; you just have to look if you are really interested in making a valid argument. Some studies are in Spanish and some are in English. I am going to include one of each in this post. The first one is in Spanish and was made in Puerto Morelos. The second one is in English and was made in Playa del Carmen.

I am furnishing links to each. If you have questions, read the study.


https://www.researchgate.net/profil...acional-Arrecife-de-Puerto-Morelos-Mexico.pdf

AN ENGLISH STUDY:

http://www.tourism-master.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Wegelin-dissertation.pdf

Scuba, Playa del Carmen

Definitions for the dives: Deep dive: >18 Meters Mid-deep dive: 12 – 18 Meters Shallow dive: 12 > In total there were 21 dives observed of which 7 deep dives, 5 mid-deep dives and 9 shallow dives. A total of 87 divers were observed of which 34 during the deep dives, 19 during the mid-deep dives and 34 during the shallow dives. Participants of the deep dives are all at least Advanced Open Water (AOW) certified divers. Participants of the mid-deep dives are a mixture of very experienced to Open Water (OW) certified divers and the participants of the shallow dives were mainly OW certified divers and DSD divers. The latter are customers with little to no experience and for most of the DSDs it was the first time ever diving. During the deep dives there were 24 male divers and 10 female divers. During the mid-deep dives there were 16 male and 3 female divers and during the shallow dives there were 20 male and 14 female divers. Prior to all of the dives, a dive briefing was given to the customers where safety procedures, dive signals, reef topography, aquatic life, types of corals and emergency procedures were covered. All of the dives were boat dives, where divers do a backroll to enter the water.

 

[Mike Walker]

Wow....

We have here a Master's Dissertation that classify's the mere possession of a camera as 'depreciative behavior'. There's a separate category for actually touching things with the camera - so, apparently this is targeting possession only as some sort of crime against humanity.

This is why there is a strong parallel between photographers and solo diving.
The fish don't care and the squid can be downright fascinated by the shiny thing with flashing lights.

I'll be down there in December.

I suppose I'll just sit there quietly on the boat bench with my mini-sub in my lap knowing I'm completely destroying the experience for everyone else.
I'll make certain to occasionally hiss at any new divers to make sure they get the right impression and properly align their prejudices to the community standards.

Or the mantra of 'dive and let dive' could be taken to heart. Education applied where possible and pragmatism applied where not. A realization that dive guides are not law enforcement and one's personal preferences for the underwater experience do not define the rules for an activity widely enjoyed by people from very diverse backgrounds and with very diverse priorities and interests.

A culture of caring and, when necessary, respectful communication connecting action with impact for those obviously unaware is the extent of what is reasonable. Anything beyond that and one might be better served by joining one of the popular religions so they can continue through life as the 'chosen ones'. It'll give that warm, superior feeling without all the effort of international travel and fitting into a wetsuit.

 

[chillyinCanada]

What I found particularly interesting was that the supposedly better divers are doing more touching. And what's with the littering? And suntan lotion, I'm assuming is "suntanning", as it's rather difficult to suntan deep.

As for you @Mike Walker, you are obviously a pariah!

 

[Mike Walker]

As for you @Mike Walker, you are obviously a pariah!

That's an interesting spelling for *******

The suntan one is also a head scratcher. It's certainly better if everyone uses less impactful ('reef firendly') methods - I'm partial to rash guards, hats and covered boats - but I'd suggest that a bit of reef damage is better than a bunch of skin cancer cases if one tries to keep some perspective at the macro level.

What frightens me (and this goes far beyond just this issue) is how readily people will accept something presented in the form of an academic paper as being the final word on a matter without looking at it critically. There are a lot of crappy papers out there and a lot more stuck drawing whatever conclusions they can from a overly small sample size. The ones writing them know this: Researchers completely made up claim about men’s drinking before conception

 

[StefinSB]

If you think everybody in Cozumel doesn't do a checkout dive you were asleep your first dive with each operator. No need to bang against stuff, but the DM's and Operators in places like Cozumel know that storms , turtles and parrotfish do much more reef damage than all the divers ever could. This coral bleaching has nothing to do with divers.

That may be true but shouldn’t be used as an excuse for ****** underwater behavior. Damage is additive by the way.

 

[Bob DBF]

Too bad the studies don't get into depth on the actual experience of the divers involved. If it was found that divers with actual experience, instead of what card they carry, they might find divers with more experience do less damage.

And parameters like one study where they decided on whether a photographer was a novice or advanced by the cost of the camera alone. Perhaps, if the studies focused on the qualifications, experience, and behaviors that are associated with minimizing the damage on the reefs it would be more productive.



Bob

 

[John Bantin]

People don't get enough time in the water to practice so are generally not very good at spatial awareness and conducting themselves in the underwater environment. Add a camera to the equation and ... Of course, everyone likes to think they are an expert. After more than 7000 dives, I know I am not.

 

[ReefHound]

That's an interesting spelling for *******

The suntan one is also a head scratcher. It's certainly better if everyone uses less impactful ('reef firendly') methods - I'm partial to rash guards, hats and covered boats - but I'd suggest that a bit of reef damage is better than a bunch of skin cancer cases if one tries to keep some perspective at the macro level.

What frightens me (and this goes far beyond just this issue) is how readily people will accept something presented in the form of an academic paper as being the final word on a matter without looking at it critically. There are a lot of crappy papers out there and a lot more stuck drawing whatever conclusions they can from a overly small sample size. The ones writing them know this: Researchers completely made up claim about men’s drinking before conception

The problem with this "data" is it isn't verifiable. It is someone's observations. One can take new observations though.

Sunscreen. I don't see many divers applying sunscreen when they have their wetsuits on all day. Even so, did this account for reef-safe sunscreen? Maybe one thing boat ops can do is carry a few tubes of reef-safe sunscreen and ask guests to use that not their own.

 

[ChuckP]

There was an impact study done last year I thought - a guy would drop in behind a group of divers and watch from a distance. The lady that did it is on her walkabout, I’m sure she’ll be back to ask.....