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5 Tips to Recognize an Eco-Dive Center and Bet on Eco Diving
2. How Can I Be an Eco Diver and Prove It?
3.1. Eco Dive Center Business Culture
3.2. Eco Dive Shop Volunteering
3.3. Eco Dive Instructors and Team
There are more and more scuba divers every day. This is understandable because when you discover scuba diving, you realize all the values linked to it: companionship, safety, and above all, love of the ocean and its inhabitants. This sport makes no sense without them.
Basically, eco diving is about enjoying sensations and contemplation of life under the sea. When you scuba dive, it starts a connections process with yourself, but also with the ocean, animals, and nature. This change of mind makes you more respectful of the environment. As a result, you are more demanding concerning sustainable tourism, and eco-dive clubs are the best option.
An eco-diver makes a conscious decision to protect the marine environment. So, an eco-diver adapts his behavior to this goal in and out of the water.
However, well-meaning divers can impact nature if they don’t learn eco-diving procedures correctly and rely on the necessary infrastructure provided by the diving centers.
Being an eco-diver is about personal choices, from your food to the way you dive. Even your commute or the sunscreen you use has value. Nothing is decisive, but everything you do is working toward the goal: to protect nature.
In this blog, we have already written about what an eco-diver does and does not: Eco-diving skills, gear management, finning techniques, avoiding touching anything, making noise, feeding the animals, and leaving garbage are some things that distinguish an eco-diver from a non-eco-diver.
Between these eco decisions is choosing an eco-dive center, the dive operator we will rely on for each of our trips and local experiences. These are some features that are going to help you to separate the wheat from the chaff regarding eco dive resorts and dive resorts.
Marine conservation is a central part of any top-notch dive shop.
However, an eco-dive center goes a step further, understanding their environmental commitment as an essential part of their business culture.
An eco-dive shop takes effective action for the environment in and out of the water. It is their distinctive feature.
This means much more than internalizing a simple code of behavior. The eco dive shops’ responsibility is to share these values with the clients and inspire them by our example.
This is the goal of Dressel Divers’ Go Green project.
Basically, it follows sustainability principles based on respect for people and nature with actions that go beyond sustainable diving.
And as far we are concerned our bet starts with a diving business which boosts the local development as well.
For example, our eco-dive club offers workplaces to local people and contributes to the local economy.
Likewise, our eco dive clubs collaborate with local associations committed to nature.
Currently, Dressel Divers collaborates with the Dominican Foundation for Marine Studies (Fundemar) in some reef restoration projects such as reef health monitoring and coral gardening.
Other organizations are Sea Shepherd, PADI Project Aware, Collares Rojos, the sanctuary Compasión Animal and more.
If you trust an eco-dive center to enjoy your scuba vacations, you can probably participate as a volunteer in some of its environmental activities.
Sea bed cleanings, coral nurse transplantations, and coral nurseries maintenance are some nonprofitable and free proactive activities where you can take action for nature with Dressel Divers.
In addition, Dressel Divers eco-dive centers contribute to mitigating our carbon print, taking care of their ecological impact and makes the most of natural resources: saving energy, recycling, and taking effective action for the environment.
For example, Dressel Divers avoids non-reusable plastics. In addition, in all our dive centers there are special containers to separate the garbage to facilitate recycling.
In the same line, our staff focus their work on equipment service and maintenance to minimize our carbon print.
By the way, here’s a valuable tip. Avoid extremely cheap dive centers. They’re cutting back on something. Quality has a cost, and doing it sustainability is more expensive yet.
On other hand, only choosing Dressel Divers as an eco-dive center implies taking action for the environment. Not only because we are proactive with eco diving but also because we strictly comply with the environmental laws since all our eco diving tours are in protected marine parks in three of the four countries where we operate.
What does it mean exactly? It involves respecting limitations on the number of boats, paying eco-fees, and having marine park permissions up to date.
An eco-dive shop is nothing without a committed team that can boost the project.
For that reason, eco dive instructors, dive masters, and staff is vital in Dressel Dives locations.
As you learned at the beginning, being a responsible diver is crucial to start in this world correctly.
Do you remember that first time?
During the learning period, you developed your essential scuba diving skills. You know that learning to control your buoyancy and dive gear is essential for your safety and being respectful of marine life. And, you know, as well, that if you have forgotten these diving techniques after a while without scuba diving, the eco-dive center ought to offer the possibility to refresh your knowledge.
These are the foundations of an eco-dive center. However, thanks to our committed team in our dive shops, you will learn more. For example, our Diving Instructors offer briefings with information about the local fauna and flora. This is because, the more you know about the environment, the more you take care of it.
To boost awareness about the human impact on the ocean and coral reefs, eco-dive centers usually organize special workshops on scuba diving and even collaborate with scientific research, like this study about The Spawning Of Brain Coral In Bayahibe.
During these activities, you will be able to scuba dive and also participate in chats and debates. A great example of these activities was “Divers Who Care for The Ocean”. Go green organized this activity to celebrate the World Oceans Day in Playa del Carmen. During this journey, our guests had the opportunity to learn about coral reefs and their importance.
Once you’re in the water, it’s important to keep conservation in mind and to remember these 7 tips.
You as Dressel Divers know that with the right policies in place, diving can contribute to ecosystem preservation and biodiversity. So, if you are looking for an eco-dive center in Jamaica, The Dominican Republic or Mexico, drop us a line.
