Scuba diving is about environmental awareness

Utila Dive Centre has always prided itself as being ecologically aware and it has been  our ethos that part of any course we teach should also include educating people about the reef and the environment. By educating scuba divers of all levels, we can ensure that they interact in a safe and positive way and spread the word as they continue traveling and diving the world.

Last October, we decided we wanted to take this a stage further and coordinate all our green activities and also ensure that UDC strives continually to innovate in this area. We therefore assembled a permanent “green team”. this consists of several staff members who meet regularly to discuss, implement and monitor activities. currently the activities include:

• introducing recycling bins for plastic all around the dive centre
• implementing a green notice board that includes information on what fish to eat and what to avoid, tips on how to care for the reef, quotes of the week and whale shark and lionfish
• regular beach clean ups
• underwater clean ups
• frequent ecology and educational talks from experts
• coral watch as a mandatory part of our dive master program
• llionfish capture and containment distinct specialty and a lionfish sighting database. (all lionfish data fed to Utila College for Marine Ecology for further analysis)
• Shark petition promoted to all clients

The green team recently worked on an island wide Utila Clean Up Festival.
This involved on land clean ups, led by the local school kids and underwater clean ups led by the dive centres on the island. The Festival ended in typical Caribbean style with a beach party and Hog Fry!