- Messages
- 22,171
- Reaction score
- 2,790
- # of dives
- 5000 - ∞
I've written more Codes of Practice for more different groups than probably anyone that you'll ever meet, ranging from Earthwatch to UNESCO, from the University of the Philippines to the American Academy of Underwater Sciences, and I can tell you that there are good and bad COPs. Having read the Queensland COP, my frank opinion is that it is rather poorly put together and is little more than a hash made from the standards and practices manual of the very entities that brought you the problem in the first place. More importantly the underlying weakness of those entities are not addressed but simply permitted to slide on through in such a way that they actually become worse, as those weakness are melded into an official paradigm. All the COP really does is provide liability cover and economic protection for what appear to be the self-serving BS artists that are working hard to guarantee that you well never become, and you will never see, another Val Taylor, unless they find a way first to capture a piece of the action. I assure you that I will never dive in Queensland as anything but a visiting scientist and I strongly suspect that most discerning divers will, if only after one trip, come to a similar conclusion. I don't suspect that will be a problem for the Japanese clientele, or the Chinese clientele, but that's going to be the Australian dive biz if it keeps going the way that you think it will. Too bad.