Coral trimmed walls drop a thousand metres
into the depths of the Coral Sea where diver, Dean Miller, pauses. With
30 metres of clear visibility, Dean, a marine biologist with Undersea
Explorer, watches as a solitary dog-toothed tuna examines him through a
steely glass eye and a school of grey reef whalers hover, like suspended
torpedoes, in the distance.
It is an ordinary day on Osprey Reef, north-east of Australia's Great
Barrier Reef, but the extraordinary diving here has inspired this
scientist to do a doctorate on the expectations, experiences and
education of coral reef divers.
The project is part of ongoing research at Queensland's James Cook
University into the ecologically sustainable management of marine
wildlife tourism.
"The study uses questionnaires and biological surveys to compare what
lives at a dive site with what divers enjoy seeing," said Dean.
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"If divers
visit certain places hoping to see specific animals such as sharks,
scorpion fish or potato cod, then those animals have a value to the
tourism industry.
"This information can then be used to support conservation efforts for
these species and their habitats."
By understanding more about the expectations and impressions of beginner
and experienced divers across a number of sites, Dean also hopes to
identify ways to use education to enrich diver's experiences and
minimise their impact on the reef.
"This is about how to enhance an individual diver's experience and how
these experiences, when combined, can be used as a conservation tool,"
said Dean. "It is also about exploring tourism's potential to provide a
more sustainable economic option to conventional primary industry on
coral reefs."
Dean's
findings are due for release in mid-2005 (dean.miller@jcu.edu.au).
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