Impact of Snorkeling/Diving on DR's Reefs

Keith R

"Believe it!"
Jan 1, 2002
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All right, fans of diving & snorkeling! Time to speak up! :cool:

I have a set of related questions I have been wondering about for some time:
(1) How much damage to Dominican corral reefs is uncontrolled or poorly controlled snorkeling & diving doing?
(2) Which areas of the DR are the most adversely affected?
(3) Who's doing a good job of minimizing adverse impacts, and how?
(4) Should there be some sort of system to inform prospective tourists of who is doing a proper job of reef stewardship, and if so, what kind? Who should run it?
(5) Any other ideas on how best to address the problem?
 

MaryS

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Feb 13, 2003
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Keith, I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for but... when we went snorkeling with North Coast Divers they were very adamant about telling us to stay away from the reef. Several times he reiterated to not touch them.
 

Narcosis

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Dec 18, 2003
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The single most damaging action to a reef here and probably anywhere is done by a cruise ship.. I do remember years ago cruise ships arriving at Catalina island (La Romana) would drop anchor directly on the reef around the island, as well as dump waste that the ship it'self produces, which no matter how well it is monitored or controlled, is damaging.. Small craft, pleasure boats also dropping anchor on reefs are very damaging, as well as fisherman doing the same.

Garbage being thrown overboard onto the reef would be the second worst direct damage..Bottles and other garbage litter overpopulated areas such as sosua and Puerto Plata reefs as well as areas such as Catalina island where much boat traffic exists.

In recent times many things have been done to avoid damage to the reefs, such as instaling mooring at dive sites so boats don't need to drop anchor and areas like Catalina no longer see cruise ships dropping anchor.

The single best way to avoid further damage is education.

In general the island's reefs are in good health and you must remember the size of the island. Most people only know a fraction of the reefs closest to the resort areas. There are many reefs here that have little or no pressure on them at all.
 

Ohmite

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Feb 25, 2003
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Most divers and instructors are well aware of the impact they have on the environment, and try to minimize it. There are always those that ignore common sense, and do what they will. There is a fair amount of reef grafitti on the reefs of Sosua, as well as garbage from boats, the beach, and other sources.

The dives shops in Sosua/Cabarete pitch in one or twice a year and go on garbage cleanup. They take several groups out during the day to collect underwater garbage at different locations in the bay, it's taken to shore and properly disposed of.

Other then that I don't know of any conservation groups or anything to protect the reefs. "Look, but don't touch". is what I tell people I take with me snorkling.
 

Narcosis

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Dec 18, 2003
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How to protect dominican reefs.

1. Show people the reef..encourge them to dive or snorkle, they will protect it once they see it.

Since that is not very practical. We need to educate people.

Children need to be tought at a young age the importance of the reef in protecting the island itself from erosion, from hurricanes, etc. And politians need to be made aware how valuable they are to tourism. As a very valuable natural resource.

Islands like Bonaire and the Caymans base their whole economy around their reefs. In the Bahamas they actually have dollar values on sharks in terms of how many tourist dollars a live shark produces for the economy.

Once we start doing these things here, people will look at the reefs for the treasure they really are.
 

Gabriela

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Dec 4, 2003
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keep off

10 years ago the coral in Sosua Bay was alive. Now it is dead. Please tell this to the catamaran operators.
 

caco

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Dec 3, 2003
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Last week I participated in a conference about coral reefs in the DR. I helped put together the group of local and foreign experts and found out the following:
1) The main cause of reef destruction comes from the earth; deforestation, sewage, man's intervention in the sea (bridges, sand banks) all without proper studies. The second reason is international fishing, the boats with big fishing capacity. Local fisherman and their anchors were only mentioned as the third cause. Tourists were not even mentioned.
2) The problem is so huge that the main Caribbean reefs varieties are on the border of extinction.
3) Even if we stop polluting the damage is so big that thousand of years would be needed to recover.
4) The hope and maybe the only one is the creation of coral reef gardens with a low tech concept whereby reefs can be reproduced fast but with the help of the local community and local fishermen.
Check the site of www.counterpart.org. Their VP lives in Washington, D.C. (His name is Raymon Chavez, rchavez@counterpart.org) and he would like to meet Keith. They have done a wonderful work in Fiji with great success.
 
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Reefs

The reef off Punta Cana is virtually dead, caused by traffic and abuse, more respect for these living structures is definitely needed.
Education is the key, education of the people, the tour operators and the tourists.
Reefs are a living Creature

One comment that I disagree with is a cruise ship dropping its garbage overboard, I have been on many cruises over the past 20 years and have never seen this done . I was always impressed with the way they handled their trash and disposed of it while in port including their sewage.
Most cruise ships drafts are deep enough that they would try and avoid coming anywhere near a reef. I personally saw the MS Kungsholm coming out of harbour in Grenada and hit the reef and sink in 40 feet of water. She was towed to Puerto Rico and scrapped because of the hull damage.
 

jsizemore

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Aug 6, 2003
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Ships and garbage

As cook in the Navy I am responsable for most garbage disposal at sea.
Sewage ,paper, food and other easily pulped garbage is run through a grinder pumped overboard three miles off shore or more routinely. There are a few areas where it is farther out.
Metal and glass is shredded up so it will not float and it can be disposed of 13 nauticle miles from shore.
Depending on the ship size plastic should not be dumped overboard. The navy has ways we are allowed to do it but the paper work is such a nightmare I could not see anybody doing it.
The plastic is put into a machine that heats it to 300 degree f and presses it down into a disk. A bushel of plastic tuns into a disk about 20 inches acoss by three inches thick and it gets sent to the landfill in port.
Most of your plastic dumped at sea will be small boats.
I know cruse ships dump sewage and pulpable garbage but I really dowubt they dump plastic. The image and fines it too high for them.
John
P.S. side not. are there moreing bouys set up so anchos do not need to be used? They are cheap and do a good job in protecting the reefs.
 
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Narcosis

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Dec 18, 2003
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Cruise ships

Back when ships would anchor over the Catalina island reefs, damage was very obviously caused by the ships dropping anchor..I have seen first hand the damage they did.

As for garbage maybe I did not explain clearly. The ship it'self was not doing the dumping, but they would transport people from the ship to the island... garbage that was produced was taken to Casa de Campo, and as amazing as it sounds even dumped directly in the water to save the trip. This garbage was "indirectly" produced by the ship.

Today ships dock at Casa de Campo at a brand new dock, but they still transport groups of tourists to the island and claen-up in a similar fashion..As you can imagine the "clean-up" crew needs to be educated on how damaging it is to have any waste go overboard. I'm sure the tour groups would never condone this, but it happens.
 

jsizemore

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Aug 6, 2003
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garbage

I can see that with the Garbage. I remeber in 1987 my ship pulled into Hong Kong and we had a garbage bardge come out and get our trash. We put out the effort to double bag our trash and were carful as we lowered each bag down so as not to let it brst and have anything go over the side. Then we were disgusted and amazed that when the worker on the barge got the trash down they cut open the bags and took out any metal they could sell and dumped the rest in the harbor.
Well I guess things will someday get better.
John