Thailand's
reefs are generally in excellent condition. Many National Marine
Parks have been created to help preserve the reefs and locally
much is done to educate fishermen and boat captains to use low
impact fishing methods and mooring buoys, rather than to drop
anchor onto live coral. Within the National Marine Parks, fishing
is only permitted to local fishermen and is discouraged around
the major dive sites.
Coral reefs support up to 4,000 species of fish, 700 species
of coral, and thousands of plants and animals and are home to
one in every four marine species. They also provide vital protection
for shorelines against erosion, storm and wave damage. Coral
reefs provide an incredible diversity of beneficial medical pharmaceuticals,
and contain compounds found to help fight heart disease, asthma,
leukaemia viruses, cancer, and HIV.
Approximately one quarter of the world's coral reefs lie in Southeast Asian waters,
and the Andaman Sea is home to the most diverse collection of marine life
in the world. The reefs we see today are the result of a process that started
240 million years ago and each reef forms a complete eco-system - the oldest
and most productive eco-systems on earth. If the balance of these ecosystem
are disturbed it can wipe out whole sections of this delicate system.
Coral reefs rely on the photosynthesis of marine algae,
which forms the basis if its food chain, so a large amounts of
sunlight is required in order for a reef to form and flourish.
For this reason coral reefs are usually found in fairly shallow
water (to a maximum depth of 70-100 m for most corals). Pollution,
rubbish dumping, silt run-off from rivers, ozone depletion, and
global warming all contribute to reef degradation by blocking light necessary
for coral growth and introducing toxins and poisons that injure coral reef
life.
Aside from their environmental importance, coral reefs are extremely
important to fishing industries, local economies and tourism.
Coral reefs attract millions of visitors each year. Tourism is
the largest industry in the world, bringing billions of dollars
to local economies and sustaining 10% of all jobs on earth.
In
1992, tourism associated with coral reefs generated over 27 times
that generated by the world's marine fisheries. Yet we are contributing
to the loss of this vast resource at an alarming rate. Scientists
estimate approximately 25% of the world's coral reefs have already
been destroyed. If current trends continue, we risk losing the
entire remainder within the next 30-50 years.
Thailand
is attracting more and more visitors each year, and greater numbers
of people are trying scuba diving. This impacts on some of the
more popular dive sites with increased numbers of inexperienced
divers being more likely to cause damage to coral by inadvertently
banging into parts of the reef if their buoyancy is not so good.
If you haven't dived for a while, it's a good idea to take a
refresher course and do buoyancy check in the pool before taking
a dive trip out to the reef.
"Ko
Lanta has to have some of the best diving in the world. I
am amased at the diversity on the reefs along with the colours
and visibility. Hin Daeng & Hin Muang were breathtaking and
Ko Haa, spectacular. Thanks for being so chilled out and
relaxed and also for taking an old BSAC diver under your
wing."
"We've
had an absolutely fantastic time. The diving has been some
of the best ever and the dive Instructors the best we've
ever experienced. You've really made our holiday special
and we'll take away lots of memories both in our heads
and on film!"
