You'll have to excuse me for commenting on old news, but I've been buried in grant writing all week. I had a real yuck-fest with one of my field managers today that must be shared. So we were talking about how to do successful outreach to tourists who are, for the most part, blithely ignorant of environmentally safe snorkel behavior around coral. After much discussion, my manager suggested a new campaign with the tagline: How Would Jesus Dive? I almost suffered a hernia from laughter.But after the humor subsided, I started to wonder how this would be any less ridiculous than the Vatican recently releasing a set of "Ten Commandments" for drivers, telling motorists to be charitable to others on the highways, to refrain from drinking and driving, and to pause to pray before you even buckle up to ensure that you make it to your destination.
Which of course led to further Friday mirth and humor among us godless conservationists. But I'm a pragmatist, so whatever works, right? If a set of Vatican approved diving commandments get people to snorkel and dive in an environmentally conscious way, then so be it. So the challenge is thrown down! If anyone would like to propose the "Ten Diving Commandments," feel free to contribute your thoughts. Reminders that I'll burn in everlasting hell for my "sacrilege" are also welcome. I could use more laughs.
7 comments:
Rick,
Judy Edwards forwarded me your blog:
> Just a comment:
> I have the luxury of having a captive tourist and the time to tell a story. So I get more than just a sound bite in however. I have many forms of the same
> story. The basic concept I hope to get across is to have them see the tree for the forest.
> It is easy in looking at an ecosystem with hazy understanding (or utter ignorance sometimes) to overlook the individual.
> I mean the individual fish, the individual coral, the individual rock, and even - or especially the individual YOU! and your impact.
> Between the observer and the observed is the basic disconnect.
> So here are the variations on the theme that spring to mind that I tell sometimes.
>
> I tell the story of a reef that I used to visit. Teeming with fish and corals. One day we had a hurricane in Maui. (Iniki)
> When I went to the reef after the water settled and the hurricane had passed - all that I could find was sand sand sand. No coral. It had been buried in the
> 10' of sand that came up on the reef. In the place of the reef were 100's of refugee FISH. Swimming around looking for their home. Over the next couple of days I dove the adjacent reefs and saw these displaced fish trying to move into existing occupied habitats. The residents there were having none of this invasion and there was a lot of territorial squabbling. Eventually the drama died down and everybody moved on or into new homes. (no comment about the coral that died). I do my best to tie this into the concept that everything you see has a home and a place.
> It is easy to think that those cloned looking identical butterflies are not individuals. One could be another and the hugeness of the ocean leads one to think of them as interchangeable fish in a vast seascape of life. But they are not.
> The same story again i will retell just to underline the point if necessary but this time I change it to an experience that is more familiar
> Birds in trees in your neighborhood. Individuals live in individual trees in your neighborhood. Same story occurred when the tree in front of my home was cut down because the Japanese beetle had invaded the tree and it was dying. Even in its dying state it was home to 50 birds. They would return each evening to perch in its branches and each morning I would be awakened at dawn by the bird alarm.
> They cut the tree down. Squabbling went one for weeks as those individuals tried to move into neighboring trees that were full.
> Finally another variation on the theme...While watching CNN many years ago at the end of the newscast the "human interest" story was about a
> subdivision in Texas that was being overrun by frogs. They interviewed people about the frog epidemic and made generally mirthful statements about
> how there were so many frogs that they were basically "gumming up the works" with their frog bodies hopping into buckets in garages, getting underfoot
> in the kitchen, wading pools, road kill, etc...However what was never overtly mentioned but was obvious from the look of the homes and the "owners" of this land was that the "invasion of frogs" was actually an invasion of people.
> This was a new expansion of the subdivision and they had built in an area where the frogs were living. The frogs were now displaced as the wetland was being paved over. (The fact that CNN had made this end piece their human interest story and then BLAMED the frogs makes me angry to this day - but that is status quo on how many people look at the natural world and our place in it)
> So I shake up the point of view that most people have of the teeming masses of nameless faceless things that are not recognizable to them as individuals.
> This is not a bottomless sea. It is important that people see those ecosystems as individual and special. As important too is that they must see the individuals that inhabit them as unique selves.
Ron Thow came up with his own 10 commandments of diving and posted it to rec.scuba 13 years ago.
1. Thou shalt harangue others into submission until they stop experimenting, for then shall you feel righteous in ignorance.
2. Thou shalt argue endlessly about the merits of different dive schools for that wastes time and achieves nothing.
3. Thou shalt exhibit no sense of humour, for that can lead only to enjoying diving and diving is a Serious Thing.
4. Thou shalt consider 40m to be the bottom of the ocean, any who say the ocean extends below it are heretics and shall be fed to the sharks.
5. Thou shalt feel obliged to render an opinion on Absolutely Everything, even when you don't have one.
6. Thou shalt consider dive computers to be the One True Way and not use Tables, as they require thinking and are thusly uncool.
7. Thou shalt have colour-coordinated dive gear and look disapprovingly upon those who don't for they will not be pleasing to the fish.
8. Thou shalt chastise and vilify those who drink and smoke and dive, despite the fact that they've been doing it for 30 years and are perfectly happy.
9. An individual cannot be trusted to take responsibility for their own actions and must be told What To Do, especially by divers who are less experienced.
10. Thou shalt chastise and vilify those who Dive Alone, for they must Wrong because someone once said so.
thanks, erik, for the comment...
and i agree, a captive audience makes the teachable moment and opportunity to expand people's perceptions and attitudes possible...
and i fully endorse the focus on the reef individual (whatever species you choose) as a strategy to make personal connections... a revered former teacher and colleague, uc santa cruz' todd newberry, used an interesting metaphor to explain the challenge of making the all important connection between the observer and the observed...
he told us to think of every interaction with nature as being like a blind date... we probably all have some experience in this (or at least a first date gone awry)... there's so much to know and find out and learn (and hopefully do), yet we often can't get through the awkward silences or the fumbling questions... as todd said, interactions with nature are often times the "blind date from hell"...
but like anything, practice helps... and having a great facilitator or model (as it sounds as though you provide to your clients) is a big step forward...
tim...
thanks for the oldy but goody 10 commandments... i remember seeing this a few years back, and it still makes me laugh today... thanks for contributing!
The most important commandment is: Thou shalt not harmeth a single invertebrate!
Rick
Erik Fwd me your BLOG
The Ten Commandments of Snorkeling
1.Thou shalt have no other coral before me.
2. Thou shalt not carve any graven image in or of coral.
3.Thou shalt not take the name of coral in vain.
4. Remember the Snorkel day and keep it holy.
5. Honor thy charismatic macro and not so charismatic micro fauna.
6. Thou shalt not kill, unless you are going to eat it.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery by touching coral you are not married to.
8. Thou shalt not steal the coral or shells from the ocean.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy snorkel buddy and say "he did it"
when you get caught by the DLNR.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy buddies snorkel gear.
I think we just need to find a way to live without harming the environment... Maybe underground.
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