In many places, Green Fins has become one and the same with “the way to dive”. Instead of causing damage, member dive centres help protect the very environment that their businesses depend on. I have been extremely lucky and have dived with hundreds of dive centres across Asia. I have learnt to quickly distinguish the difference between a dive centre that will end up destroying a coral reef and a dive centre that will visit the same reef without even disturbing a sea mouse.
The difference is often a combination of many influences but essentially it boils down to two things: One is simply how much the dive centre pays attention to their guests and the second is how much the dive centre management is aware of the environmental impacts of their staff’s, dive guides’ and even cooks’ job roles.
Firstly, people are curious; it is what makes us human. Watch a baby with a toy. It will pick it up, feel it, smell it, and basically allow its senses to absorb it. We are not marine creatures and when we are underwater we revert back to this basic instinct of wanting to interact and get close. Sadly, when SCUBA diving on tropical reefs, this curiosity can lead to breaking corals by getting too close, stressing animals by trying to touch or intrusively photograph them, and even causing entire species to decline by taking marine-derived souvenirs. Dive centres can manage this behaviour by simply paying more attention to their guests and correcting customer behaviour. This can be done through simple briefings before they enter the water, posters on the boat and staff role model behaviour.
Secondly, the power to protect coral reefs lies in the hands of dive centre management. It simply doesn’t make good business sense to damage what makes you money. Ruin your house reef and you have nowhere to take your guests. Your business is ruined. It is sadly true that some dive centres knowingly damage the environment, and don’t care, but this is rarely the case. Often, management are shocked to hear that their staff are (to name but a few) manipulating marine life for photos, using bleach to wash the marine toilet, dropping anchor on live coral, or allowing their cook to throw up to 100kg of food a week off the dive boat. This is simply the case when top level management loses touch with activities
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