Phuket Poll: Should tour guides or tourists be charged for coral damage?

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Phuket Poll: Should tour guides or tourists be charged for coral damage?

The Phuket News

 

Should tourists or their guides and tour companies be held responsible for damage to Phuket's coral reefs? Photo: The Phuket News / file

 

PHUKET: -- The past few months have seen coral preservation efforts at key tourist dive sites and coral reef attractions for day-trippers in and around Phuket ramped up to the ridiculous and shift target from the tourists themselves to the tour guides and tour companies that lead them.

 

The drive began in earnest in late January, when officials from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) Phuket office posted signs at Koh Racha Yai’s three main bays warning tour guides and tourists of the consequences of breaking marine conservation rules.

 

After a couple of “misunderstandings”, Chinese tourist Huang Yongjia, 35, was caught with two baby Parrotfish in a plastic bottle and was charged and fined B100,000 for his infraction. 

 

Officials tried the same with 53-year-old Russian tourist Olga Smirnova, but as she did not have the B100,000, she spent two nights in police lockup while awaiting trial for feeding bread to fish at Racha Yai.

 

Full story:  http://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-poll-should-tour-guides-or-tourists-be-charged-for-coral-damage-61575.php

 

-- © Copyright Phuket News 2017-03-28

[stevenl]

Everybody who is responsible for coral damage should face the consequences. So divers, guides, instructors, tourists feeding fish (the Russian lady was an illegal tourguide BTW, not a tourist), snorkelers walking on corals, etc.

[Ulic]

Both guides and tourists should be fined for coral damage.

[Srikcir]

Whomever enables swimmers to reach protected coral reef areas should be held liable for damage that results.

[eeyang wah]

Responsible tour companies take care of the environment and explain to their customers how to do the same. Companies that don't should be shut down. 

[gamini]

Ban scuba diving and encourage snorkelling. but of course  this will never happen. There's too much money to be made issuing fancy instructor certificates etc, they could just as well do this in a swimming pool. there's an island in Australia where scuba diving is not allowed and the place is swarming with large fish. In fact, Thailand used to be the same before the event of scuba. There were a lot of sharks and big fish  everywhere..

[stevenl]

Ban scuba diving and encourage snorkelling. but of course  this will never happen. There's too much money to be made issuing fancy instructor certificates etc, they could just as well do this in a swimming pool. there's an island in Australia where scuba diving is not allowed and the place is swarming with large fish. In fact, Thailand used to be the same before the event of scuba. There were a lot of sharks and big fish  everywhere..

Still many fish around. Scuba is not the cause of the decline in the number of sharks though, finning and fishing is.

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[NamKangMan]

NOTHING is enforceable here. 

 

All they have been doing, for years, is trying to generate revenue, with full knowledge the coral is being destroyed.

 

This crackdown is just for the media.

 

In the years to come, Phuket Thai's will have to explain to their children why the coral is dead, and why what could have been a sustainable industry, has been lost. 

[joecoolfrog]

1 hour ago, NamKangMan said:

NOTHING is enforceable here. 

 

All they have been doing, for years, is trying to generate revenue, with full knowledge the coral is being destroyed.

 

This crackdown is just for the media.

 

In the years to come, Phuket Thai's will have to explain to their children why the coral is dead, and why what could have been a sustainable industry, has been lost. 

No , they will just blame the farang tourists for no longer coming.

[Rhys]

Actually, the dive shops and the dive masters and ultimately the divers should be held accountable...they are master of the dives,  required and police the damage to the underwater environment. 

[Oziex1]

On 29/03/2017 at 0:20 AM, NamKangMan said:

NOTHING is enforceable here. 

 

All they have been doing, for years, is trying to generate revenue, with full knowledge the coral is being destroyed.

 

This crackdown is just for the media.

 

In the years to come, Phuket Thai's will have to explain to their children why the coral is dead, and why what could have been a sustainable industry, has been lost. 

And the explanation to the children will be, someone else did it.

[Old Croc]

On ‎3‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 8:17 PM, gamini said:

there's an island in Australia where scuba diving is not allowed and the place is swarming with large fish

I used to go on extended fishing trips to a place called Coral Bay in NW Australia. The bay itself is a sanctuary zone, but we would launch the boat there, and travel several miles outside the reef trying to catch snapper (spangled emperor). I remember after one fruitless trip, when back in the bay holding the boat in thigh deep water, I found myself surrounded by a large school of very type of fish I'd been trying to catch all day. I think they knew where they were safe. I made the mistake of hand feeding them with leftover pilchard bait and nearly lost a finger in the frenzy. Much blood, all mine. (I was also once bitten by a small moray eel in the same area)

Large swathes of the Ningaloo reef have now been declared sanctuary zones, and it is enforced. Large fines and confiscation of all gear, including your boat, is likely.