Rouphael, A.B., Inglis, G.J., 2001. '' Take only photographs and leave only footprints ''? An experimental study of the impacts of underwater photographers on coral reef dive sites. Biological Conservation 100, 281–287.
Hey guys,
I posted this on another topic already, but have been encouraged to post it here for discussion too. This paper studies the effects of UW photographers on their environment and includes data on types of damage done, sex of diver and experience. I use these papers to help me be a better guide, instructor and photographer here in the Red Sea. I'm interested to see how other people feel about this paper's conclusions...
Absract:
Impacts caused by recreational scuba diving on coral reefs vary widely among different dive locations and individual divers.
Linear modeling was used to explore a range of individual and situational risk factors associated with divers who damaged corals
in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Recreational divers were followed for 10±15 min, and all contacts with, and damage to
corals were recorded. Information on the dive site, diving experience, gender, and use of an underwater camera were recorded.
Thirty-two out of 214 divers (15%) damaged or broke corals, mostly by fin kicks (95%). Impacts were most likely to be caused by
male divers, in the first 10 min of the dive, at sites with a large abundance of branching corals. Specialist underwater photographers
caused more damage on average (1.6 breaks per 10 min) than divers without cameras (0.3 breaks per 10 min). To explore the effects
of gender and use of a camera further, we issued single-use underwater cameras to 31 randomly chosen divers and compared their
behaviour to a control group. Use of a camera had no influence on the rate or amount of damage caused by these naive photo-
graphers, but male divers were more likely to break corals and caused significantly more damage, on average, (1.4 breaks per 15
min) than female divers (0.3 breaks per 15 min). Variability in the amount of damage caused by divers in our sample reflected the
very different underwater behaviours exhibited by specialist and non-specialist photographers, and male and female divers. Greater
understanding of the causes of harmful behaviours by these groups will allow better targeting of on-site interpretative and cau-
tionary information and may prove to be a more palatable management strategy than regulation of site use.
