Possible southern reef closure

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And I will repeat, that wasn't what the reef closure was about - nor did ANYONE thing the reef would "heal" in this short time frame. There was a much bigger picture - to get PROFEPA (the enforcement arm of the Marine park) here to enforce regulations for operating as well as poaching on the reefs at night. PROFEPA has come and I hope they are here to stay. The issues are far from resolved, but there has been significant progress.

How can PROFEPA not be there on an ongoing basis already? Where is all of the money WE pay going to, the Mexican government? And if this is true how can all of the resorts/dive ops/dive op employees/restaurants/taxi drivers/maids/cooks not be crying bloody murder if the PROFEPA is allowing poaching and allowing the regulations to not be followed?

Cozumel dries up and withers away without the diving/snorkeling, doesn't it?
 
How can PROFEPA not be there on an ongoing basis already? Where is all of the money WE pay going to, the Mexican government? And if this is true how can all of the resorts/dive ops/dive op employees/restaurants/taxi drivers/maids/cooks not be crying bloody murder if the PROFEPA is allowing poaching and allowing the regulations to not be followed?

Cozumel dries up and withers away without the diving/snorkeling, doesn't it?

What do you think we've been doing? Why do you think we've been fighting so hard? And this is also why everyone should avoid eating grouper and other reef fish in local restaurants - responsible restaurants don't serve these fish, but there are some that still do.

As far as where your money goes, the marine park is a federal agency, so the money goes to Mexico City and is funneled back. Don't shoot the messenger and don't blame the marine park - they have been fighting right alongside us to get more funding to bring PROFEPA to the island. The marine park stretches every penny they have for research, staffing, administration, education and other programs.

And what can you do as tourists? Make sure you're diving with licensed and permitted operators.
 
Cozumel dries up and withers away without the diving/snorkeling, doesn't it?

In a word, no. Or in two words, cruise ships.

If diving ceased to be viable / available, there would be a significant impact. But Cozumel is never going back to the tiny fishing village of 70 years ago as long as snow falls over the US and Canada (and other places) and Cozumel can offer touts hawking tchotchkes, $1 beers, inexpensive junk food, warm temps, and a few all-inclusive beach clubs (with trucked in sand, if necessary) that offer swimming and associated toys. Don't forget that there are plans to expand one of the existing piers and to build and entirely new cruise ship pier.

I'm not saying these are good things; I'm not saying I'm happy about this, but it's hard to argue that this isn't the way it is.
 
The money you all pay for the wrist bands ALL goes to Mexico City. I would be VERY surprised if more that 200,000 dollars a year of it comes back to the park for costs of administration (salaries, boats, gas, trucks, rent, electricity, phone, etc, etc) . The was no PROFECA office or staff on Cozumel for a good while. That was one of the points of this exercise, to bring more of the wristband money back to the island from CDMX for park rule enforcement and PROFECA staff.

In this day and age, to think diving is the mainstay of Cozumel's economy is nonsense. I am sure the cruiser-ballonheads spend more per day on tequila and beers than all the divers do on hotels, food, and dive packages in a week. I'll bet the cruisers spend more just on Cozumel's 900+ taxis per day than all the dive shops take in during the same period.

Cozumel was never a fishing village. Isla Mujeres was, but not Cozumel. That is why almost all the fish served in Cozumel today come from off-island. Cozumel's economy has ranged from logwood harvesting (1600-1890), slave trade (1848-1865), wrecking (1860-1890), chicle harvesting (1890-1940), and tourism (1958-???).

Volume 2 of True History of Cozumel will be available on Amazon next week.
 
The Riviera Maya News article mentioned above, infers a limited rotational park opening that could be the next step. More news expected in the next couple of days.

This morning, I found an interesting article on coral bleaching that has occurred in the Florida Keys and has started in Cozumel. Here’s a snippet from that article, “Between 1991 to 1995, significant increases in Everglades runoff and heavy rainfall resulted in increases of reactive nitrogen and phytoplankton levels at Looe Key above levels known to stress and cause die-off of coral reefs.“

The article noted that coral bleaching is caused in part by reactive nitrogen and exacerbated by increases in water temperature, not by increasing water temperature alone.

After reading this article, I now can feasibly understand why the park was closed to assess reactive nitrogen level water quality data, from the Marine Park while it was fully in use (by divers & dive boats) and after the park was closed and void of divers and dive boats. The closed data might also be an indicator of the alleged SW island resort water pollution (reactive nitrogen) alone.

Hopefully when the Marine Park reopening news is released in the coming days, they will provide justification for their past and planned actions with a report on their research efforts. Hopefully they’ve already discussed their approach and plans in some level of detail.

On a related front...........We’ve all laughed about diver urination causing coral bleaching. After my read today, I’m thinking it would be interesting to see some realistic worse case calculations on water reactive nitrogen levels from “divers” to understand that level of worse case impact.
 
I don't think SCTLD is necessarily connected to nitrogen run off or water temperature. Both of these stressors may contribute however.
 
SCTLD infects reefs frequented by divers and those not frequented by divers alike. One thing is for sure, if you haven’t been diving coz in a year, you’re going to see the impact this disease has had and continued to have. Many posts ago I stated the practice of trying to treat infected coral piece by piece was the ultimate definition of futility. You’ll see why next time you’re down here and everywhere this disease has spread. Better see Belize before it fully invades that area... it’s just showing up on their northern reefs now. Brain coral and others susceptible to this disease are going to reside in the Caribbean’s history book.
 
From the December 13 Undercurrent newsletter..... oh my!

It’s rumoured that the southern reefs will open in December for tourist season, but the agency that runs the marine park, CONANP, has told our local contact that they have made no decision to reopen those areas.
 
From the December 13 Undercurrent newsletter..... oh my!

It’s rumoured that the southern reefs will open in December for tourist season, but the agency that runs the marine park, CONANP, has told our local contact that they have made no decision to reopen those areas.
But then: Official Reef Re-opening
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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