Scuba diving is generally considered an “eco-friendly” activity, and diving tourism is an economically important industry in many places, especially developing island nations. However, overuse is a serious problem plaguing coral reefs worldwide, and high-intensity diving activity is correlated with declines in reef health and live coral cover. Limiting or reducing the number of divers is usually not a practical solution, so reducing diver impacts by improving diver behavior is the next best option. Many diving professionals are concerned about diver-inflicted damage to corals and are eager to take action to protect reefs. Most dive operators conduct a dive briefing about the dive site before each dive; the dive briefing is an ideal time to encourage divers to be mindful of their behavior. Reminding divers to avoid touching corals costs nothing and requires no training. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a coral-safe diving reminder in reducing damaging diver behavior. Divers were given either a standard briefing or a briefing with a coral-safe diving reminder by their boat captain or dive guide, then clandestinely observed for a five-minute period during their dive. Divers were given questionnaires to collect demographic information, camera/glove use, group size, and awareness of reef-friendly diving techniques.
Results/Conclusions
The coral-safe diving reminder significantly decreased diver-reef contact, reducing accidental contacts by 74% (p < 0.0001) and intentional contacts by 70% (p < 0.0001). Contacts with live corals specifically were reduced by more than 50% for both accidental and intentional contacts. Divers who used cameras or gloves made significantly more intentional contacts than those without cameras (p < 0.01) or gloves (p < 0.01). Tourist divers made more contacts with the reef than resident divers, and they were also more likely to use gloves and/or cameras. Small but significant correlations were found between group size and contact rates, with intentional coral contacts exhibiting the strongest correlation (Spearman’s rho = 0.18, p < 0.001). Contact rates were strongly correlated between dive guides and their clients, especially for intentional contacts (Spearman’s rho = 0.52, p < 0.0001). These results suggest that dive guides can influence diver behavior by giving a coral-safe diving reminder during the dive briefing, paying special attention to the behavior of glove and camera users, and modeling good diving behavior for their clients. Particularly in developing island nations, where most divers are tourists, educating and empowering local diving professionals to improve their clients’ diving behavior could have broad impacts.