One of my (any many others) favorite things to do when I’m on a cruise to someplace tropical is snorkeling. I’ve been doing it for a while so now I would consider myself a pretty experienced snorkeler but this wasn’t always the case and judging from what I see when I am out on excursions far too many people have no idea what they are doing. Now I’m not talking about from a technical snorkeling standpoint but from an environmentally friendly one.
Now, you may be asking yourself what I mean by this, and if you are there is a pretty good chance that this article may be of some use to you. This is not a knock against anyone since it isn’t uncommon for novices to have poor snorkel etiquette. When I say poor snorkel etiquette what I am really trying to say is far too many of us engage in behavior that contributes to the death of the Earth’s coral reefs.
Over the last few decades over 35 million acres of the Earth’s coral reef’s have died. While the main reasons for the death of the reef system are aggressive fishing methods, pollution and imbalances in nutrient export (causing unnatural algae blooms which can rob a reef of sunlight); tourism is also adding to the problem.
Now I am not necessarily blaming the tourists even though many of us are aiding in the eradication of the coral reef, I am calling out the excursion providers. All too often these excursion providers don’t do an adequate job of informing their customers of the responsibilities that go along with the privilege of snorkeling.
Usually, customers are given a cursory advisory telling them to not stand on or touch the corals in any way. The explanation is usually brief and more or less glossed over (who wants to risk upsetting paying customers). In fact, only twice have I ever heard this warning strongly enforced and I’ve never heard a thorough explanation of exactly what irresponsible snorkeling can do to the coral reef.
Here are four behaviors common to inexperienced snorkelers :
Standing on or touching corals – On every single occasion that I have been snorkeling with a group I have seen someone standing where they should not be. Untrained human contact with corals can not only cause stress and bleaching but also destroys the skeletal structure of the organism.
Indiscriminate use of sunscreen – Cruise passenger staples like sunscreen, lotions and perfume can introduce pollutants into the reefs immediate environment which basically poisons the reef. I once read, researchers estimate nearly 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off of swimmers every year. This run-off causes sunscreen-induced bleaching and threatens 10 percent of the worlds coral reefs.
Dumping garbage – This is pretty self-explanatory but it still happens quite a bit. Some of it is accidental with a gust of wind taking away a bag of chips and other incidents are due to not caring. How many times have you seen a smoker put a cigarette out in the sand. Eventually it all ends up in the ocean.
Feeding fish – Tourists seem to think that dog biscuits are the favorite food of marine animals and to some extent they do seem to love it. However, much as it would be detrimental for us to eat cake all day every day dog biscuits aren’t made to be eaten by fish. Since it is a totally unnatural food source they are unable to properly digest this food, which causes all sorts of problems. In essence feeding them dog biscuits allows them to eat themselves to death.
So, if you plan on being one of the millions of tourists who visit the worlds reefs each year, you really need to know the proper way to conduct yourself there. The Earth’s coral reefs are an amazing phenomena that cannot be adequately replenished. Once the reef’s die they will be gone forever.
What can we do to be safer snorkelers?
Use environmentally friendly sunscreen such as that doesn’t wash off in the water. This particular brand of sunscreen is both water-proof and bio-degradable.
Be extra careful when snorkeling close to the reef. Never touch anything when in the water. Aside from the fact that you will harming the reef there are also some nasty critters (fire worms) that can hurt you. So, the next time you need to readjust your mask don’t stand on a giant brain coral to do so.
No one should ever litter under any circumstance and especially not in the water. But, even trash left on the beach (or buried on the beach) will eventually make its way to the water. I’m a huge Dave Matthews fan and I remember at the end of one of his concerts he said leave only your footsteps behind. Even though you can’t leave footsteps in the water I’d say it still fits here.
Don’t feed the fish unsuitable food like dog biscuits. Even though you may see the locals selling or excursions providers offering dog biscuits for you to feed the fish, don’t take the bait. Although the fish will eat the treats they aren’t good for them. Feeding any form of life something its not meant to be fed can change behavioral patterns resulting in fish not wanting to eat their natural diet, since we are feeding them “candy” all day every day.
Now there are many other large scale changes that need to take place in order for us to preserve whats left of the worlds Coral Reefs, but making a mental note of this post is a start.
