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Euro-Divers and the Environment
Euro-Divers try to preserve and protect the environment whenever and where ever we can. There are many good reasons to be concerned about the protection of the environment and the coral reefs and we’d like to ask all our divers to join in with us protecting the beauty and magic of the unique dive sites by helping us to sustain them in their pristine form as long as possible.
We’d like to ensure that our guests have a fantastic and relaxing time while diving with us and we therefore offer a complimentary “orientation dive”. Local rules, regulations are explained and we invite you to refresh your skills and make sure you feel comfortable under water.
By setting your weight properly and keeping good buoyancy you will not only have more fun diving but also prevent any accidental reef contacts.
We take our students to special training sites for safety reasons and also to avoid any contact with the reefs while conducting exercises at the bottom. On dive sites we do not allow the boats to anchor. All dives are set as mooring or drift dive. We recommend divers not to wear gloves to avoid unnecessary reef touching and we do not allow interaction with the aquatic life (feeding, riding, etc.).
We follow and support the PADI Project Aware 10 ways to protect the underwater world and encourage our divers to assist the Project Aware by participating to our continuing education programs and specialty courses such as fish identification, u/w naturalist, shark specialty, manta specialty, etc.
On land we can help by participating in reducing waste as much as possible. We try to recycle papers and other wastes. Whenever possible we try to reduce our energy consumption.
Whenever possible we work closely with local NGO’s and environmental organizations.
Euro-Divers Worldwide actively assists in preserving the environment and supporting others which have decided to act. By doing so, we do not only prevent damages on the local marine life but contribute to put in place durable environmental protections to guarantee our future as divers and as dive centre operator.
Maldives
Maldivian Whale Shark Protection Area. http://www.whalesharkresearch.co.uk
In the Maldives, the South Ari Atoll is known for the many whale shark encounters. This area is actually 1 of 3 known locations world wide to have “local” whale sharks all year round. Our dive centers at Diva Maldives and Vilamendhoo assist by updating the international database for whale sharks. This way we try to find out where they are seen and what they eat, their swimming behaviors, etc. Our dive center at Diva Maldives is one of the main contributors in whale sharks information for our researchers. They are also leading the Maldivian Protection Area Committee which involves communications with many local islands and government.
Protect the Maldives http://www.protectthemaldives.de
A group of tourist came together and tried to plot how they can keep the Maldivian islands as beautiful as they are now. They set up some guidelines which makes guests aware of how they can help. Make us all aware in how we can be the difference. This organization is a complete non profit organization set up by tourist for tourist.
PROJECT AWARE international clean up day http://www.projectaware.org
In September every year PADI’s Project AWARE’s longstanding International Cleanup Day event is the biggest underwater cleanup of its kind. Held annually on the 3rd Saturday in September each year, more than 370,000 volunteers clean over 33,000 miles of shoreline to remove seven million pounds of rubbish.
OMAN:
Euro-Divers Oman works in close link to the Ministry of Environment in which we operate following their recommendations; we enforce the same of no touching and no harassing marine life.
We organize many dolphin watching trips and we follow the rules and regulations of the IBAMA in Brazil & CORAL.org and their guidelines.
Green and hawksbill turtles are frequently nesting on the resort beach and we work in close contact with the Local Turtle ranger exchanging information about when they are about to hatch and isolating the area of the nest from the guests to avoid people stepping over the eggs.
We organize yearly clean up’s and follow a recycling program of water bottles with the local water supplier; we have a big bottle collector outside the center.
Our outboard engines are four strokes which save petrol use and are less polluting.
THAILAND:
Euro-Divers in Thailand are a "5-Star Gold supporting member" of the TDA (Thai Diving Association).
http:/www.tda-cmas.org
It is the TDA who organizes more or less regular beach clean-ups, where we generally take part too.
It is also thanks to the TDA and our support that we now have the biggest artificial reef of Thailand at our doorstep in Laguna Beach Resort.
Annual Beach clean-ups we participate:
- Patong Beach (Phuket's most popular and most polluted "party beach").
- The Island of Racha Yai (Phuket's premier training ground for DSD's, SD's and OWD's).
- The Island of Ko Hei (also known as "Coral Island", opposite of Chalong Bay, where the majority of the boats depart from).
Furthermore, every opening of a new "High Season" Euro-Divers Laguna Beach Resort organizes clean-ups on the nearby "Tin Lizzy" wreck as well as the small island of Ko Waeo. After the monsoon season from May to November there are quite often several fishing nets that drifted by and hooked up on the wreck or the coral.
Those are removed along the year by our diving teams for the safety of our divers and for the survival of our coral reefs.
EGYPT:
All our Egypt base dive centers are members of HEPCA, as member of this organization (http://www.hepca.com) we enforce in all centers and to all staff and guests the Red Sea law, no collecting, no touching, no hunting, no gloves etc
We only use dive sites with moorings and we even support in placing and replacing moorings by providing staff and boats. We also organize a yearly clean up day involving not only underwater areas but also beach/coastal clean-up with the hotel guests.
Our Regional manager for this region is also a Board Member of HEPCA representing the Red Sea – El Gouna area and one of duties is to ensure that all other centers are doing the same
All centers use rechargeable lights.
Euro-Divers Egypt participated in the latest addition of Dive the Earth day of the 22nd of April 2009. This was done by studying corals for the Coral Watch program. Also a fish count and clean up was organized.
We recycle paper and in some dive centers we recycle the trash as well as the resort enforces that, El Gouna recently won a green globe award and we are part of it (more on http://www.elgouna.com )
We and all our staff follows the guide lines which can be found on http://www.longitude181.com
INDONESIA:
ODEDI is involved in Beach and/or Reef Cleaning activities organized on regular basis with support of the different local organization and/or clubs or group of people. We support PADI Project Aware events.
Every week on Friday, the staff of Cocotinos Resort and ODEDI is actively doing cleaning as part of participation to North Sulawesi permanent action towards “Clean Manado”. This activity is called “Jumpa Berlian – Jum’s at pagi bershih lingkungan anda” which means “Every Friday Morning, Clean our own Neighborhood”.
SPAIN:
PROJECT AWARE international clean up day http://www.projectaware.org
In September every year PADI’s Project AWARE’s longstanding International Cleanup Day event is the biggest underwater cleanup of its kind. Held annually on the 3rd Saturday in September each year, more than 370,000 volunteers clean over 33,000 miles of shoreline to remove seven million pounds of rubbish
Cala Joncols cleans the beach and bay of Cala Joncols and takes part in other volunteer actions organised by http://www.parcsdecatalunnya.net
We strongly recommend our instructors to follow the program proposed by Scuba Eco (http://www.scuba-eco.com/) which consist of learning how to take water samples, analyze them and discuss the results. It is important information to know that the supply of any substance of industrial origin to the water (as fertilizer with huge nutrient value) brings along biological imbalance. This leads to a development of algae and a drop of the oxygen quantity. Through this program, our divers will see that they can recognize themselves the first signs of water imbalance.
MAURITIUS:
In Mauritius we use exclusively 4 stroke engines thus reducing the smoke and pollution compared to the previous 2 stroke models. Following the project that started few years ago (http://www.reef-mauritius.com/projects.php?id=1) we tight the boat on the mooring buoys that have been placed around the island by the diving centers to protect the reefs from the damages caused by anchoring. Once a year we participate to the PROJECT AWARE international clean up day www.projectaware.org that is held in September.
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