Marine Conservation
Marine conservation has become an important part of the identity of many dive centers. We talk about protecting coral reefs, reducing plastic, organizing beach clean-ups, restoring damaged reefs, monitoring marine life and educating divers about the underwater environment.
These are all valuable efforts.
But there is a much more basic question every dive center claiming to have a conservation philosophy should ask:
How good is the buoyancy of the divers and dive professionals you put into the ocean every day?
Recreational scuba diving can have direct physical impacts on coral reefs, particularly through contact by fins, hands, knees and equipment. Research has shown that diver contacts can damage living coral and that diver behaviour and environmental awareness play an important role in reducing these impacts [1–3].
Because conservation does not start with a coral restoration project.
It starts with how we dive.
At Oceans 5 Gili Air, we believe that neutral buoyancy is marine conservation. That philosophy influences how we teach beginner divers, how our Divemasters guide certified divers, how our instructors behave underwater and how we train the next generation of dive professionals.
You cannot tell people to protect the reef while demonstrating diving techniques that unnecessarily put you in contact with it.
Conservation Starts With Your Own Fins
It is easy to call yourself environmentally friendly.
A dive center can organize a beach clean-up. It can participate in a coral restoration project. It can put conservation signs around the dive center. It can post photographs of turtles, sharks and healthy reefs on social media.
But what happens when its divers enter the water?
Studies of recreational diving have documented contacts between divers and coral reefs, with fins frequently responsible for accidental contact [1,2]. Research has also shown that intervention, education and active management can significantly reduce damaging diver behaviour [3,4].
A diver with poor buoyancy can accidentally kick coral, stir up sediment, crash into the reef, grab something for stability or kneel on the bottom.
A single mistake doesn’t make someone a bad diver. Beginners are learning, and learning requires patience.
The important question is:
What are we teaching them?
If poor buoyancy becomes accepted as normal, we create divers who believe contact with the underwater environment is simply part of diving.
We don’t believe it should be.
Neutral Buoyancy Should Not Be an Advanced Skill
There is sometimes a strange contradiction in scuba education.
We tell new divers:
Don’t touch the reef.
Then we take them underwater, place them on the bottom and ask them to perform skills.
What message are we actually giving them?
A student learns not only from what an instructor says. A student also learns by observing the instructor. Behavioural research has long demonstrated the importance of observational learning: people can acquire behaviours by watching others [5].
That principle matters underwater too.
If an instructor routinely kneels on the bottom, students can begin to see kneeling underwater as normal.
If a Divemaster lies on the seabed while looking at a shark, guests may assume that this is acceptable diving behaviour.
If an instructor grabs the reef to remain in position, how can we expect students to understand why they shouldn’t do exactly the same thing?
That is why Oceans 5 takes a different approach.
Neutral buoyancy is not something we save for later.
It is part of learning to dive.
At Oceans 5, Ocean Skills Are Taught Neutrally Buoyant
During training at Oceans 5 Gili Air, our philosophy is simple:
When we enter the ocean, we are divers—not people sitting on the bottom wearing scuba equipment.
Our students therefore perform their underwater skills while neutrally buoyant whenever appropriate to the training standard.
Regulator recovery, mask skills, air-sharing exercises, buoyancy exercises, out-of-air procedures and other underwater skills are practiced with the objective of maintaining control.
The objective isn’t only to complete a skill successfully.
The student should learn to perform it while maintaining control of their body, depth and position in the water.
That makes the exercise more realistic.
In a real diving situation, there probably isn’t a convenient sandy platform underneath you.
A diver should be able to deal with a problem while diving.
No Touching Means No Touching
Oceans 5 operates around the Gili Islands within the Gili Matra Marine Protected Area.
For us, a no-touching philosophy isn’t something that applies only when we happen to be swimming over beautiful coral.
It is a diving philosophy.
Don’t stand on the reef.
Don’t kneel unnecessarily on the seabed.
Don’t hold coral to take a photograph.
Don’t grab something because there is current.
Don’t lie on the bottom to watch a shark.
Don’t chase a turtle.
Don’t move an animal because it would make a better photograph.
Corals are living organisms, and physical contact can cause breakage, tissue damage and other disturbances. The cumulative impact becomes particularly important at frequently visited dive sites where many individual contacts can occur over time [1,2,6].
And importantly:
Dive professionals should lead by example.
There may always be situations in which contact is necessary for safety, an emergency or a specific authorized activity. Safety comes first. But unnecessary contact should never become standard diving behaviour.
Dive Professionals Are Ocean Ambassadors
A Divemaster or instructor has much more influence underwater than they sometimes realize.
Guests watch us.
Students copy us.
If the guide gets extremely close to a turtle, the group follows.
If the Divemaster lies on the bottom, guests may lie beside them.
If the instructor touches the reef, the student quickly learns that “don’t touch” apparently has exceptions.
But the opposite is also true.
When a dive professional demonstrates excellent buoyancy, maintains an appropriate distance from marine animals and moves calmly through the environment without touching anything, guests notice that too.
Professional behaviour can create responsible behaviour.
Research into diver impacts supports the importance of briefings, environmental education and direct intervention in reducing contacts with coral reefs [3,4].
That is why we see our dive professionals as ocean ambassadors.
Being an ocean ambassador isn’t a title for social media.
It is behaviour that should be visible on every dive.
Your Fins Can Undo Your Conservation Message
Imagine spending hours restoring a damaged reef and then taking poorly controlled divers across another part of that reef every day.
Imagine teaching people about coral conservation while your instructors routinely kneel underwater.
Imagine telling guests not to disturb marine animals while the guide lies on the bottom to get closer to a shark.
There is a contradiction.
Conservation cannot be something we switch on during a conservation activity and switch off during a normal fun dive.
Every dive is a conservation dive when you dive responsibly.
And every dive can have a negative impact when you don’t.
Research on heavily visited coral reefs demonstrates why cumulative tourism pressure deserves attention. Individual contacts may appear insignificant, but repeated interactions across large numbers of divers can create measurable impacts [1,2,6].
Perfect Buoyancy Is Not About Looking Good
Sometimes excellent buoyancy is presented almost as a performance.
A perfectly horizontal diver makes a great photograph.
But trim and buoyancy aren’t primarily about looking professional.
They give a diver control.
With good buoyancy and trim, you can stop without grabbing something. You can observe a small animal without landing beside it. You can swim above coral without kicking it. You can maintain your position while taking a photograph. You can respond to another diver without immediately sinking toward the bottom.
Most importantly, you become aware of where your entire body is underwater—including your fins.
That is conservation in practice.
This Is Why Instructor Training Matters
The philosophy becomes even more important when training instructors.
An instructor doesn’t influence only the students standing in front of them today.
That instructor may teach hundreds or even thousands of divers during their career.
Poor habits multiply.
But good habits multiply too.
This is one reason why the SSI Instructor Training Courses at Oceans 5 Gili Air place so much emphasis on realistic teaching techniques, buoyancy, trim and control.
We want instructor candidates to be comfortable teaching while neutrally buoyant because that is the environment in which their future students will actually dive.
If we want future divers to protect the ocean, we first need instructors capable of demonstrating what responsible diving looks like.
Conservation Cannot End When the Beach Clean-Up Ends
Picking up plastic is conservation.
Monitoring reefs is conservation.
Studying changes in marine ecosystems is conservation.
Supporting marine research is conservation.
Educating local students is conservation.
Reef restoration is conservation.
But so is hovering 50 centimeters above the reef without touching it.
Sometimes the simplest conservation action is simply leaving the underwater environment exactly as you found it.
That requires skills.
The United Nations Environment Programme and other conservation organizations have repeatedly highlighted the pressures tourism can place on coral reef ecosystems and the importance of sustainable tourism practices in reducing those impacts [7].
For dive centers, sustainable tourism therefore shouldn’t only be about what happens on land.
It should be visible underwater.
Before Calling Yourself a Conservation Dive Center, Look Underwater
Maybe the diving industry needs to ask itself a difficult question:
Is it enough to have a conservation philosophy if our everyday diving behaviour doesn’t support it?
A conservation logo doesn’t protect coral.
An Instagram post doesn’t protect coral.
A beach clean-up doesn’t compensate for poor diving practices.
And a no-touching policy means very little when the professionals themselves cannot maintain their position without touching the bottom.
Conservation should be visible in the way we operate every single day.
For Oceans 5 Gili Air, that means starting with something every diver can control:
ourselves.
Neutral Buoyancy Is Marine Conservation
We don’t expect a new diver to have perfect buoyancy immediately.
Learning takes time.
Mistakes happen.
That is why instructors exist.
Our responsibility isn’t to criticize beginners for not already possessing a skill they came to us to learn.
Our responsibility is to teach them properly from the beginning.
Teach them that the bottom isn’t a chair.
Teach them that coral isn’t a handhold.
Teach them that marine animals don’t need to move for their photograph.
Teach them that being a good diver means being in control.
And most importantly, demonstrate those principles ourselves.
Because protecting the ocean isn’t only about the conservation projects we organize.
It is about what happens during the thousands of ordinary dives taking place around our reefs every year.
Control your buoyancy. Control your fins. Respect the animals. Don’t touch the reef.
That is not separate from marine conservation.
That is marine conservation.
FAQ
Why is neutral buoyancy important for marine conservation?
Neutral buoyancy allows divers to maintain their position without standing, kneeling, grabbing or crashing into the underwater environment. Studies examining diver impacts have identified physical contact, particularly fin contact, as an important source of recreational diving pressure on coral reefs [1–3].
Should beginner divers be expected to have perfect buoyancy?
No. Beginners are learning, and mistakes will happen. The responsibility of the instructor is to create an environment in which students progressively develop buoyancy and body control instead of becoming dependent on the bottom.
Why does Oceans 5 teach skills neutrally buoyant in the ocean?
Because this is how divers actually dive. Performing skills while neutrally buoyant combines problem-solving with depth, buoyancy and body-position control and helps prepare students for realistic underwater situations.
Does Oceans 5 allow divers to touch the bottom?
Oceans 5 follows a no-unnecessary-touching philosophy in the ocean. Divers are encouraged to remain neutrally buoyant and avoid contact with the reef, seabed and marine life whenever possible. Safety always takes priority when contact becomes necessary.
Why are dive professionals so important for conservation?
Instructors and Divemasters influence the behaviour of the divers around them. Students and guests often learn by observing their dive professionals [5]. Research also indicates that intervention and environmental briefings can reduce damaging diver contacts [3,4].
Is good buoyancy enough to make someone an environmentally responsible diver?
No. It is an important foundation, but conservation also requires awareness. Divers should respect marine animals, maintain appropriate distances, avoid touching or collecting marine life, manage their equipment properly and follow marine protected area regulations.
A Final Question for the Diving Industry
The next time a dive center says:
“Marine conservation is part of our philosophy.”
Don’t only look at its conservation projects.
Look underwater.
Watch its instructors.
Watch its Divemasters.
Watch how its students are being taught.
Watch where their fins are.
That may tell you much more about their conservation philosophy than any poster on the wall.
At Oceans 5 Gili Air, we believe responsible diving begins with the way we teach. Neutral buoyancy, no unnecessary touching and respect for marine life aren’t extras added to diving.
They are part of learning how to dive.
References
[1] Hawkins, J. P., & Roberts, C. M. (1992). Effects of recreational SCUBA diving on fore-reef slope communities of coral reefs. Biological Conservation, 62(3), 171–178.
[2] Rouphael, A. B., & Inglis, G. J. (2001). Take only photographs and leave only footprints? An experimental study of the impacts of underwater photographers on coral reef dive sites. Biological Conservation, 100(3), 281–287.
[3] Medio, D., Ormond, R. F. G., & Pearson, M. (1997). Effect of briefings on rates of damage to corals by scuba divers.Biological Conservation, 79(1), 91–95.
[4] Barker, N. H. L., & Roberts, C. M. (2004). Scuba diver behaviour and the management of diving impacts on coral reefs. Biological Conservation, 120(4), 481–489.
[5] Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
[6] Zakai, D., & Chadwick-Furman, N. E. (2002). Impacts of intensive recreational diving on reef corals at Eilat, northern Red Sea. Biological Conservation, 105(2), 179–187.
[7] United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Coral reefs and sustainable tourism: environmental management and protection of coral reef ecosystems. United Nations Environment Programme.
Oceans 5 Gili Air operates within the Gili Matra Marine Protected Area. Our philosophy is simple: conservation doesn’t begin with a special conservation dive. It begins every time a diver enters the water.
