Sustainability of Scuba Diving Tourism on Coral Reefs of Saba

Increasing heterogeneity of sensitive assemblages as a consequence of human impact in submarine caves

“…In the latter case, this approach could induce MPA managers to propose quotas on divers. Recently, because of exponential increase in diving tourism (Hawkins et al 2005), several studies focused on the impact of diving activity within MPAs, aiming at identifying threshold level of visitation for a given site Inglis 1997, 2001;Garrabou et al 1998;Hawkins et al 2005). However, besides quantifying a value of recreational carrying capacity of a given area, the implementation of a ''bottom-up'' approach based on the characterization of benthic communities potentially affected by diving activities, contextually evaluating their Impacts from recreational scuba diving on rocky reefs may seem trivial compared with large-scale threats such as overexploitation, species invasion, chemical pollution, and climate change.…”

“…Tourism revenue, measured in terms of dive trips, can strongly increase in MPAs (Worm et al 2006;Merino et al 2009). The increase in diving visitation, if not adequately regulated, leads to detrimental effects for benthic assemblages (Milazzo et al 2002), conflicting with the conservation objectives of MPAs (Hawkins et al 2005) and thus impairing management initiatives to coupling protection of biodiversity and local economic growth (Davis and Tisdell 1996;Harriott et al 1997;Walters and Samways 2001).…”

Influence of Zoning and Habitats on the Spatial Distribution of Recreational Activities in a Multiple-Use Marine Park

“…The attractiveness of sanctuary zones for non-extractive activities such as snorkeling has implications for achieving conservation objectives, as such activities can potentially result in environmental impacts, especially if participation is high. Physical damage is the greatest concern, especially in coral reefs habitats that contain fragile branching coral species in shallow waters (Hawkins et al 2005;Meyer and Holland 2008). Such impacts result not only from people, but also vessels, as anchoring may also result in damage to many habitat types, including corals and seagrass (Davenport and Davenport 2006;Lloret et al 2008a).…”

Can Artificial Reef Wrecks Reduce Diver Impacts on Shipwrecks? The Management Dimension

“…Higher impacts on the marine environment are by and large attributed to poor buoyancy control and general diver inexperience (Davis et al 1995;Hawkins et al 2005; Barker and Roberts 2004;Shackleton 2010;Harriott et al 1997), especially during training dives (Zakai and ChadwickFurman 2002). While the impacts are related to diver contact with and raising of sediments in coral environments, these findings have relevance to diver impacts on wrecks (Edney 2006).…”