Talk of the town part 01.

     This is what happening. We read the news Diving paradises may be closed
and this news Surin, Similans May Be Closed

     On the 18/01/11, many of diving schools in Khao Lak was gathering together for an important meeting. And this is what we were talking about.
  
     "We had a 1,5 hour very constructive meeting with 12 dive operators represented.
     It was decided that we prepare a press release with some factual data on coral bleaching in general and acknowledge that parts of the hard coral has been severely affected in shallow areas. We'll express our concern for the situation and our commitment to do everything possible to prevent further stress on the damaged coral - for instance we'll recommend closing the dive sites on the east coast, namely Anita's Reef, East of Eden, Beacon Reef and Breakfast Bend. We'll  emphasize that there are still 20+ great dive sites out there. We also announce our efforts to obtain reliable data from various organizations and universities.
     Further, we are looking into areas that have previously been affected by coral bleaching: what were their approaches and what was the outcome. I have some experience with that from the Caribbean and will collect information together with publications from Coral-List. Other members will collect information from organizations such as Project Aware, Green Fins, Coral Watch, Frontier and discuss possible research projects. We'll contact PTA and TDA. I know a coral transplant expert and have worked on a project with him, I'll contact him to suggest a research project for some of his PhD's
     The press release should be finalized within a couple of days and we'll use it re-actively at first - Abraham will co-ordinate this. We agreed that we should not create additional publicity on the issue, but rather just respond to incorrect or incomplete information.
     We'll meet next Wednesday, Jan 26th at 11:00, again to discuss the results of our inquiries and set up a long term strategy. The press release is our crisis management. We'll invite government officials to attend the meeting.
     With the press release we hope to spread the awareness that Similans and Surins are still great dive locations, counter some of the published misconceptions about coral bleaching, as well as improving the image of divers in general - since a lot of the discussions on the web inadvertently end up accusing divers of destroying the underwater environment. We also aim at minimizing mis-information and confusion caused by differences in the reports of dive operators concerning the conditions out there."