Cape calls for volunteer divers
2009-07-13 12:36
Cape Town - Are you a diver, looking to do your bit for our environment?
Table Mountain National Park is looking for volunteer scuba divers to assist with monitoring and conservation of the marine resources on the sub-tidal reefs within the park.
"We are in the process of developing a recreational diver based reef monitoring programme, with the long-term goal of monitoring changes in marine biodiversity," Dr Albrecht Goetz, postdoctoral researcher at Saeon Elwandle, the coastal node of the South African Environmental Observation Network (Saeon) told News24.
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are recognised globally as core areas to monitor the impacts of climate change in the marine nearshore ecosystems.
According to Goetz, the Fin (Fish and Invertebrate) volunteer diver programme will follow on from monitoring research that Saeon Elwandle has been facilitating over the last three years around the coast of South Africa.
"This exciting new citizen science initiative comes at a time of increasing public awareness of the conservation issues that face the coastal ecosystems, in the midst of ever-increasing pressure on the resources and biodiversity through fishing, pollution, and climate change,” Goetz says.
Exploitation and conservation
To gain an understanding of how climate change will affect coastal resources, the drivers of change - human exploitation and climate change - need to be viewed separately.
"In most instances this is not possible as all drivers occur concurrently, but within the borders of MPAs the impact of human exploitation is eliminated," Goetz explains.
There is a general consensus that science has neither the manpower nor the financial resources to meet the monitoring demands that are being placed upon it. In response to these challenges, volunteer-based monitoring has steadily gained recognition.
"The use of volunteers in long-term monitoring is beneficial on a number of levels," says Goetz.
"Apart from reducing the cost of data collection, the programmes also directly involve stakeholders in the conservation efforts, educating the public about the threats that face the coastal ecosystems that are often taken for granted, and creating a sense of stewardship among the volunteers."
Valid diving licence
Interested volunteer divers must have a diving licence from a recognised diver training organisation (recreational or commercial) and be over the age of 18, says Anthony Bernard, a doctoral research student based at Saeon Elwandle and involved in the Fin volunteer programme.
"So far, a total of 52 divers from various backgrounds and eight SanParks MPA rangers attended one of five training courses hosted by the Underwater Clubs of the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University."
"We weren't going to have any more training courses this year," Bernard told News24, "but we have had so much interest lately that we decided to hold two more training weekends during our September/October field trip. It's a good sign that there are so many divers serious about getting involved."
According to Bernard the pilot study is set to run for the next six months, during which time the volunteers will be applying their newly learnt skills of identifying and counting fish and invertebrates within the Castle Rocks Marine sanctuary which runs between Millers point and Partridge point, just south of Simonstown.
"During the pilot study the volunteers will be encouraged to dive as often as possible in their free time in order for us to investigate their differing ability to collect the same data, and to determine the number of 'practice' dives required before all the volunteers are able to collect data of a high and similar precision," he explains.
Diving in pairs
Volunteers will dive in pairs and be exposed to the same fish and invertebrate communities which they will be required to independently record.
Once the full programme is running the whole format of the data collecting will change. Divers will still dive in pairs but one volunteer will collect the data while the other assists.
The full Fin monitoring programme will be ready for inception by Easter next year, says Bernard. This will see the monitoring expanded beyond the borders of Castle Rocks, encompassing sites on both the False Bay and Atlantic sides of the Peninsula.
"Each year a list of areas to be surveyed will be drawn up where data needs to be collected. Once an area has been surveyed it is crossed of the list for that year. There will be no minimum or maximum number of dives that the volunteers will be required to do," says Bernard.
Training for the pilot study is free, but volunteers will have to cover their own diving related expenses. Once the full programme is running, volunteers will have to pay a small course fee for training materials.
"There is no deadline for interested divers, as the more volunteers we have, the more sites we can survey," Bernard concludes.
For more information visit www.fin.org.za