Divers Give Back

This is the season of giving, as they say. I've found myself wondering lately about what contribution divers make to their local environments and to the sites they dive on vacations. I've heard some critical people claim the divers do a lot of damage to the ocean and reefs by their own carelessness, but can it be true? Does the occasional kicked coral and dropped weight belt counteract the good that divers can do?

To find out, we have to see the kind of impact that volunteer and vacation divers have had on their favorite dive sites. I discovered some pretty cool stuff...

• Volunteer research divers assist in the identification of shipwrecks. In Florida, a group recently contributed to the closing of an open chapter in maritime history when they identified the Hannah M. Bell in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in November. Read more here!
• Traveling divers everywhere pumped millions of dollars into the economies of popular dive destinations, encouraging the creation and growth of marine sanctuaries and moratoriums on shark finning and other unsustainable fishing practices that threaten the health of our oceans. In the last two years, Australia, Palau, Raja Ampat, and several other island nations have declared new marine sanctuaries, thanks in part to the growth of their own economies through tourism.
• Divers everywhere have volunteered to be data collectors for research programs like SharksCount, which uses the data collected to close information gaps regarding shark movement and population. These volunteers are used in many applications in dive sites across the world to survey the health of reefs and fish populations.
• Here in Chicago, the 12th annual Burnham Harbor Cleanup Dive was a huge success. Local divers from shops all over the Chicagoland area removed 8oo pounds of debris from Lake Michigan via the harbor.

While we still have to work to achieve our goal to "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles," I believe the good that divers do by investing their time and money in diving contributes to the health of the oceans and lakes in a unique way. So, keep diving and have a happy holiday season!