Effects Of The Virus Pandemic On Diving
Lots of news in the last couple of months about our Earth environment healing. We want to explore what effects this global virus pandemic of 2020 has been having on environmental ecosystems, the diving industry, and what the future of diving might look like.
Most of us heard about the coronavirus in the first few days of 2020. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve missed the world news that: there is a flu-like virus, which will be the single most memorable historical event of 2020. You might like to go back into your cave now, just take some internet data with you to stay informed, and stream Netflix…like the rest of us.
Lockdown
By mid-March most of us started taking it seriously and countries began border lockdowns with quarantine practises learnt from many epidemics of history. Since then, it’s been so important to maintain a positive outlook in our ‘caves’. We have been cooking more (or exclusively) at home and learning to cook different meals for variety. We’ve been learning new languages like Navajo and High Valyrian on Duolingo. We’ve been napping more, snacking more, paying bills online, applying for any and all government financial stimulus handouts. Plenty other activities we’ve all got up to the last couple of months, and probably very embarrassing yet satisfying. Tiger King viewers have adapted to the new normal trending expletive: ‘Carole Baskin!’
Well, how’s the non-human population doing? How are their environments holding up? In many ways, a lot better off without the apex predator, humans, roaming the Earth too much. It’s a double-edged sword though. Let’s assume, all human life and their influence weren’t present. This may be ideal for other environments’ longevity and other animal species to thrive. A different species would then be the apex predator. We’ve started to see some animals taking this opportunity to ‘live their life to the fullest’. In Borneo, Swinhoe’s egrets have been spotted brazenly waltzing around apartment compound parking lots. They hunt for a morsel of organic waste in garbage which would otherwise be in their preferred wetland environment.
Less trash or different trash
Beaches are cleaner without locals and tourists visiting to trash the area with waste. River systems are cleaner from significantly decreased volume of industrial and agricultural toxic run-off. Leatherback turtles are flapping into Phuket for the first time in 20 years to nest. Despite there being less trash, as soon as lockdown relaxed some here on Borneo in June, the local Trash Hero organisation collected less female sanitary products, but a lot of medical masks. They have yet to confirm the exact weight in kilos from a local bay near a bustling port city.
Waste management
And what’s on the other edge of the waste management sword? It’s processes have been abandoned for health and safety reasons. Many world governments have deemed recycling centres a high risk area for transmitting and spreading the virus. So what happens to all the packaging from supermarkets, food and online deliveries that we’ve collected from our essential consumption the last couple of months? It’s definitely been a challenge to organise it all. Especially if your modern cave is a small space. In the hope that we can travel to a different district where there are recycling depots soon, it’s not soon enough. Eventually, the organised saved waste created in the cave turns into hoarded clutter and becomes overwhelming. Sadly, it ends up in the regular trash collection points in the neighbourhood.
Fresh air!
Air quality has definitely improved as a result of decreased carbon emissions from travel bans and economic downturn. People aren’t driving around or commuting to work, and less public transportation. Many factories that produce vast amounts of harmful gas emissions stopped operating for a time too. After seeing blue sky for the very first time, children in China have recovered from lifelong asthma. They are reported to be training in home gyms to qualify for the next world bodybuilding championship. That may have been from the reliably unreliable source, ‘The Onion’.
In just a few months, it’s encouraging to see the lower levels of ocean acidification. But is it just temporary as global economies are gradually opening up industries? What happens if or when we get back to ‘normal’ – will coral reefs react negatively to the sudden influx of nitrous dioxide particles from the atmosphere?
Fishing before school
Previous to the virus outbreak, one of the major negative influences on coral reef systems was overfishing. Policing illegal fishing became a low priority. But then fishing activities were allowed in May before schools, which are set to open again by July. Many coastal communities depend on the local resources of seafood. It’s a livelihood for many who are looking to feed their own family and make some money for their kids to start school. They’re not looking to get rich, just make ‘ends meet’. It’s difficult to judge those 2 or 3 friendly young men who have started selling a few crab, prawns, tilapia and catfish out the back of their Toyota pick up truck parked at the end of our residential street here.
Diving anyone?
The scuba diving industry and tourism, is all but grounded to a sad and slow existence for many parts of the world with borders closed to foreign travellers. Unemployment has been the lowest since the 90s here in Malaysia. Companies are folding or will do soon. Funding for conservation research is dwindling fast and will eventually run out.
Dive equipment rental will be very unpopular for many diving customers if there’s no vaccine and the virus is still prevalent. What if it will be made mandatory to have personal equipment? That would make scuba diving a very expensive sport. Nobody will expect a customer to buy their own gear for the Discover Scuba program. This is (was!) the bestselling experience for non-divers to try diving without commitment to qualify for the entry-level Open Water course.
Currently, in Malaysian Borneo, scuba diving and snorkelling activities are allowed but swimming in pools and recreational centres is not. Shallow and sheltered bays offer pool-like conditions – is it allowed for an instructor to train their students here? Or are activities limited to leisure diving in open water for certified divers? If you’re an instructor and you’ve ever taught a novice, you’ll understand how social distancing might create a dangerous situation for your nervous diver. Or any diver in fact. Regular ‘Big Jim’ usually needs a hand putting his fins on. Else he falls back into the choppy waves without anything to help him propel himself but his size-15 feet! It can be a very ‘hands-on’ profession.
The attempt of many countries to reboot the economy through domestic tourism is just…overly confident, to say the least. Foreign travellers are what many world tourism destinations have depended on. However, we all used to grouse about how places are ravaged by overtourism. The new tourism industry could one day be a very niche product. Because of this ‘hit’, it could be re-programmed with better guidelines for environmentally and socially responsible protocols.
Diving next year then? 2022? 2023?
What’s the best possible outcome for the diving industry and the marine environment? Because there will be fewer choices of dive operators for all you future Dive Heroes out there, your decision will be a lot less daunting. Fewer competition in one area will be good for these businesses, but there won’t be as many customers as they were used to in pre-virus outbreak times. They will be very ‘hungry’ for you to be their diving guest.
In this ‘new normal’ future, any respectable service provider should be attentive to your health and safety, even if it means they’re charging four times more than they used to. They’re not trying to balance their accounts of 2020. It might be that the ‘new normal’ will set a legally and enforceable maximum of 50% capacity with a 50% compensated workforce. Maybe they are having to pay double in maintenance costs and fuel to operate. We will all feel a domino effect that we will all have to ride out.
Maybe for a time, diving will be for those few who are deemed essential. Commercial and public safety divers in essential industries (oil and gas, rescue). They will be in greater demand than, say, conservation research divers. Diving for leisure will take time – maybe, however long it takes for a vaccine and successfully containing infections. Thankfully, we love snorkelling. It’s not really the diving that keeps you diving, it’s the voyeuristic experience of the world under the waves, right? Personally, we can’t wait for the next time we’re going to be in the sea again!
