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Be a Friend of the Oceans

© Linda Gettmann

As frequent visitors to the underwater realm, scuba divers have a unique opportunity to assist scientists, environmental groups, and world governments in keeping tabs on what's happening beneath the surface of the earth's oceans. Most long-time divers will admit to becoming eco-friendly after years of exposure to the teeming reef colonies found in favorite dive locations all around the world. Many of us have seen the negative effects of overfishing, pollution, anchor damage, and general disregard of our water resources.

Scientists are just beginning to fathom that the ocean has limits. Changes in weather and ocean currents underlie shifts in ocean productivity. John McGowan of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography documented a 20-year long rise in Pacific Ocean temperatures. The Alaska salmon catch is a bust; Cod have disappeared off the coast of New England, and all around the world the marine environment is reeling from threats to its survival, some of which we can control. The oceans suffer from these maladies on a grand scale and need your help to protect them from further harm.

Awareness is the first step to solving the problem. The second and most important step is Action. Do your part to help keep our oceans and waterways clean. Action can be taken in a variety of ways from litter clean-up campaigns to participation in the reef surveys and fish counts conducted by many of the organizations listed below.

My awareness came many years ago on a dive trip to Honduras where there weren't any fish larger than six inches, and no lobster. The commercial fishing industry had taken literally everything off the reefs, leaving few resources to replenish the species. Local lobster and black coral divers were crippled with DCS, having to dive deeper and deeper to find their prey. This scene is repeated the world over in many countries. Thankfully, things are changing as a few wise dive pioneers recognized this tragedy and Underwater Marine Parks began popping up along coastlines around the world. Mooring buoys relieve the stress of anchor damage on coral reefs, no fishing zones allow the natural resources to flourish and replenish.

I am a believer in doing all we can to protect our ocean habitat. A few resources to help you spring into Action, joining thousands of other divers to protect these fragile marine ecosystems.

Project AWARE Foundation Established in 1992, Project AWARE (Aquatic World Awareness, Responsibility and Education) Foundation is a nonprofit environmental education organization dedicated to the preservation of the marine environment. With strong commitment to protecting the ocean environment, AWARE plans to expand their efforts to fund natural resource protection projects. To encourage responsible diving practices, they promote mooring buoy installation in popular diving areas and encourage the creation of more artificial reefs that will replenish fish and develop new dive sites, and to work to eliminate the use of cyanide and explosives in fish collection. The only solution to explosive fish gathering is the transformation of local economies away from these destructive practices toward sustainable uses. One of the many research programs funded by the Project AWARE Foundation is the whale shark tagging project conducted by the Shark Research Institute in Princeton, NJ. A growing concern is the commercial hunting of the species in Asia.

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