Recently I talked to Andy Gray, a Briton who works as a diving instructor in Kenting. He's been diving around Taiwan since 1984. He also provided the photos with this entry.He thinks Taiwan is a good place to learn diving, but believes divers and dive operators here face a bleak future.
"Taiwan desperately needs to create proper marine parks before it is too late. The one they just opened 450 kilometres southwest of Taiwan [the Dongsha Atoll National Park ] is a joke. They should start with Kenting and then go on to Orchid Island and Green Island , then Penghu and Siaoliouciou. All of these places are being steadily fished out by local fishermen using gill nets, scuba divers who spear fish and aquarists collecting fish and corals for marine aquariums. That, combined with pollution and the dying-off of corals due to a high nitrate count, due to untreated sewage being dumped into the ocean, is causing massive choking weed growth and algae which is damaging the corals."
"If the powers that be do not take action to curtail the above bad practices, the diving industry will die off in Taiwan over the next ten to fifteen years as there will be nothing to see."
Gray is trying to do something about the situation. He and other foreign and Taiwanese dive instructors organize clean up days in Kenting twice a year, in May and September.
"We go down and clean up the reef, collecting non bio-degradable objects such as plastic, glass, metal, old fishing nets and lines. Non-divers help by cleaning up the beaches and assisting the divers out of the water."
"Taiwan desperately needs to create proper marine parks before it is too late. The one they just opened 450 kilometres southwest of Taiwan [the Dongsha Atoll National Park ] is a joke. They should start with Kenting and then go on to Orchid Island and Green Island , then Penghu and Siaoliouciou. All of these places are being steadily fished out by local fishermen using gill nets, scuba divers who spear fish and aquarists collecting fish and corals for marine aquariums. That, combined with pollution and the dying-off of corals due to a high nitrate count, due to untreated sewage being dumped into the ocean, is causing massive choking weed growth and algae which is damaging the corals."
"If the powers that be do not take action to curtail the above bad practices, the diving industry will die off in Taiwan over the next ten to fifteen years as there will be nothing to see."
Gray is trying to do something about the situation. He and other foreign and Taiwanese dive instructors organize clean up days in Kenting twice a year, in May and September.
"We go down and clean up the reef, collecting non bio-degradable objects such as plastic, glass, metal, old fishing nets and lines. Non-divers help by cleaning up the beaches and assisting the divers out of the water."
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