Protecting the environment -

Protecting the environment – and your business.

Article by Mark Powell

There are many reasons why people initially start, but more importantly why they stay, as divers. Wrecks, mines and caves appeal to some divers but increasingly the younger generation is focusing on the environmental and conservation aspects of diving. This can range from just understanding more about the species and environment they see underwater all the way through to conservation projects.

If you want to attract the next generation of divers, you need to be aware of their interest and offer something that is of interest to them. In addition to these courses providing short term revenue, divers that are passionate about some aspect of their diving will be more likely to stay diving and progress through the industry. They will invest in additional diving courses and equipment. They will also go on more diving trips. This means that teaching marine conservation courses is good for the oceans but also good for your business.

The starting point is being environmentally focused in your own diving operations. It is not good teaching the principles of marine conservation if you do not follow them yourselves. The ISO standard “ISO 21416:2019 Recreational diving services — Requirements and guidance on environmentally sustainable practices in recreational diving” provides the standard that dive operators should be following to meet best practice.

Organisations such as Green Fins (www.greenfins.net) provide guidance and accreditation to dive centres who want to demonstrate that they meet best practices. There are a number of other courses that will help divers to be more environmentally responsible and this article gives a great overview of this. https://www.tdisdi.com/member-newsletter-zh-hant/create-an-impact-by-teaching-eco-conscious-scuba-diving/

The next step is then offering courses that will capture the imagination of these new divers. SDI has a range of environmental and conservation courses that you can offer. The core courses are the Marine Ecosystems Awareness course which is available as a diver and non-diver version. This gives an overview of marine ecosystems and is suitable for all divers, while the non-diving version is suitable for anyone who is interested in the marine environment. Running the non-diving version of the Marine Ecosystem Awareness course to local schools or youth groups is a great way of getting potential new customers interested in the cool things they can see underwater if they learn to dive.

For those who want to take a more active part in underwater research through citizen science projects the Research Diver course gives a great introduction to how to conduct research underwater in a range of habitats.

For those that want more information on a specific species or the environment, we have a range of awareness courses covering more detail on specific species that are of interest to divers.

These include:

➔SDI Reef Fish ID
➔SDI Turtle Diver
➔Shark Fundamentals
➔Shark Awareness Diver
➔SDI Shark Diver Specialty
➔Shark ID and Behavior
➔Shark ID & Behavior Non-Diver
➔Lionfish Awareness
➔Manatee Awareness
➔SDI Ghost Pipefish Specialty
➔Goliath Grouper Awareness
➔SDI Ray Fundamentals

If you have this marine life in your area and are not offering these courses, you are missing out on potential business. Divers on holiday in your region will jump at the chance to lean more about this amazing wildlife and may also value the opportunity to be in the water with an instructor who can keep an eye on them.

There are also a range of courses that cover specific conservation projects or citizen science areas:

➔SDI Ocean Data Operator
➔Ghostnet Retrieval
➔Lionfish Eradication
➔SDI Coral Conservation
➔SDI Coral Gardner
➔Marine Conservation & Survey Diver
➔Wreck Archaeology Survey Diver
➔Underwater Naturalist Diver
➔Underwater Archaeology Diver level I

If you want to start teaching these courses contact HQ today. If you already have extensive experience in these areas then you may be able to start teaching them straight away. For others, particularly some of the citizen science topics you may need specific experience or you may need to work with an existing project to develop the skills or knowledge required.

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