Is environmental conservation important to you when you make dive choices?

Hello,

I just wanted to put this question out as I've had many interesting discussions about it with both divers and non-divers.

Does concern for the environment - either underwater, on-land, or both - influence your choice of a dive site, shop, resort or the region of the world?

Or

Are your choices made purely on value-for-money or convenience reasons?

Thanks in advance!

#1: NO. #2: YES. Though I AM interested in the reef environment. So much so that I have signed up to dive with an outfit at Key Largo which is planting new coral on the reefs. Thought I might as well do something useful since I'm down there in that area diving every month anyway.

#1: NO. #2:At times yes. I base the majority of my dives on the availability of live (sea)shells I can find for my (somewhat scientific) collection, and on countries/places where collecting is legal, and on dive ops that permit it.

#1 No
#2 Pretty much best value

#1: Yes. Someone has to care. It might as well start with me.
#2: Yes. What, you think I'm made of money?

I don't think there should be an "or" between the two.

Hmmm... not sure I understand. I dive BECAUSE OF my concern for the environment, but then I'm a marine biologist. I don't do wrecks or other man-made structures often (unless it is to film the life on them) and even my deepest diving was to film certain subjects only found down there.

While value is important (I'm a dive bum, not a millionaire), if I'm not seeing anything worth diving for, why do it?

If the environment isn't taken care of then the sites won't be there for the next generations to dive. I started out caring about the environment before I did diving - cleaning rivers, creeks, and I always take a trashbag with me to the beach and pick up litter.

Yes the enviroment where I dive does concern me and thats why I do what I can to make sure I leave it in the condition it was when I arrived. However, this unfortunately also crash a bit with the fact that I need to travel to visit the places, as it usually means I have to fly.

Value for money? Yes please. I might have enough to get by well enough, but if I throw money around like a drunken sailor - Which is fun but not very viable in the long run..

I will admit that, honestly, for most of my life I have been skeptical of the environmental movement. This skepticism came from many years as a journalist, during which I covered politics. I did a lot of stories that involved various environmental or conservation groups and, frankly, when I researched their claims I found a lot of inaccuracies and outright lies.

That led me to be skeptical about the very concepts these groups espoused. Add to that the sometimes radical activities of some groups and it was not hard to speculate that most of this was a sham.

That was then, this is now.

There is still a lot of environmentalilsm that is simply a fund raising ruse. But there is no doubt that this planet is in trouble. I questioned the concept of global warming until recently when new technology has pretty much proved the world is warming up, and at least a good portion of the cause is man made.

There is absolutely no doubt that the oceans are in serious trouble. As a respected friend involved in sane environmentalism put it to me once, "if people could walk under water and see what is going on in lakes and oceans, no one would ever worry about the rain forest."

So, to answer your question, yes --I incorporate environmental concerns into my diving. I am as active as I can be in environmental causes and try to improve the environments where I dive.



Jeff