Thailand mulls limiting dive tours amid coral-bleaching surge

Jan 19, 2011, 8:24 GMT

Bangkok - Thai authorities were mulling closing some marine parks to tourists after bleaching killed more than 50 per cent of the country's coral reefs last year, officials said Wednesday.

The government was expected to decide this month whether to close certain dive sites to tourists in a desperate effort to rejuvenate the country's coral reefs, said Nipon Pongsuwan, head of the Phuket office of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.

More than half of Thailand's estimated 15,385 hectares of coral reefs died last year from bleaching, caused by unusually high water temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius that lasted for more than three months in the hot season.

Half of the country's coral reefs are found in the Gulf of Thailand and the other half in the Andaman Sea, home to well-known beach resorts, such as Phuket, Phang Nga and Phi Phi.

The Andaman Sea, famed for dive sites such as the Similan Islands and Surin Nua Island, was harder hit by bleaching than the gulf.

'In the Gulf of Thailand, the death rate of live coral was about 30 to 50 per cent, but in the Andaman, it was 60 to 90 per cent of the reefs,' Nipon said.

The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources is calling on the government to close fragile reefs to tourists to help them rejuvenate.

'What we need to do is protect the fragile areas to maintain the good quality of water to allow the juvenile coral to grow,' Nipon said.

The marine expert blamed dive operators for damaging Thailand's remaining reefs by allowing tourists to walk on coral in shallow waters, or for mooring their boats over reefs and contaminating the surrounding water with their waste.

It is up to the Department of National Parks to decide on which sites would be closed to tourists.

'I think there will be a meeting this week to decide which reefs are to be closed,' Nipon said.

Any closures would be controversial because dive tourism is a big money-earner for Thailand's Andaman Sea resorts.

'It's more important to keep nature alive,' Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said.

Read more about Thailand Ecology