Scuba diving is often presented as a success story for marine ecotourism.
Each year millions of people dive beneath the surface to experience coral reefs first-hand. Scuba diving generates income for coastal communities and helps people understand why coral reefs matter.
But that success also brings a conservation challenge. It brings tourists into direct contact with sensitive coral ecosystems, where a misplaced fin, hand or camera can add to the stresses reefs already face. At a time when reefs are severely threatened, understanding how divers might help, or harm, those ecosystems has never been more important.
Between us, we have spent thousands of hours underwater as both dive professionals and marine scientists. In this time, we realized something uncomfortable: even people who admire and value coral reefs can unintentionally contribute to their decline through their actions underwater.
That observation led us to ask a simple question: how much impact are divers actually having on coral reefs underwater – and do they realize it?
