On 21st and 22nd December 2011 Remy and Alex teamed up with dive staff from South Siam Divers and Wicked Diving to learn how to become Reef Guardians. We had such a nice welcome to Island 4 on the 1st day and spent a bit of classroom time (thank you to our wonderful translator – Pla).
The objectives of SAMPAN are:
- To strengthen the cooperation among the relating agencies on the 3 marine national Parks; Mu Ko Surin, Mu Ko Similan and Mu Ko Lanta, which include the environmental quality, social and economic.
- To promote Andaman costal sustainable tourism activities using environmental standard and social criteria.
- To reduce tourism impacts in Andaman coast and enhance the positive relation in natural resources and biodiversity conservation.
The result was the development of a system to monitor the reefs of the Similan National Park with a high level of accuracy but a system simple enough to use that it can be carried out whilst guiding divers on a normal working dive.
Armed with our dive gear and shiny new Reef Guardian monitoring slates we made a trial run in Honeymoon bay.
More training after dinner, and presentation of our rash guards.
Another monitoring training dive the next morning at Anita’s Reef. Hmmmm not so easy trying to count all the wrasse and soft corals on the bommie!
Thank you to all the organisers, SAMPANKhaolak Scuba Adventures will be monitoring: Christmas point, North Point, Three Trees, Turtle Rock & Elephant Head
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