PHUKET: Efforts were being made in Bangkok to limit the number of tourists who could dive on coral reefs in the Phuket-Andaman region, a meeting of dive industry representatives heard today.
''We hope to create a special area for green tourism,'' said Paitoon Panchaiyaphum, a former head of the Phuket Marine Department who moved to Bangkok earlier this year.
''We also aim to come up with a system to allow us to easily check the qualification of dive instructors and to create a blacklist,'' he said.
Khun Paitoon was speaking at a meeting of about 100 representatives from the dive industry at the Merlin Hotel to focus on Thailand Recreational Diving Regulations.
Sea walkers, with handrails usually driven into the sand and operators attracting fish to the spot, were yet to be governed by regulations and contunied to operate by agreement with authorities, he said.
''Once the handrail is in at least further damage is limited,'' Khun Paitoon said.
The movement towards an Asean Economic community next year posed fresh issues for the diving industry, the meeting heard, with Russians and Europeans not coming in such numbers because of economic fluctuations.
In private interviews on the sidelines of the main meeting, a veteran instructor who wishes to remain anonymous said that in his experience, some dive companies produced the appropriate accrerditation when authorities requested it but left divers to descend with less well qualified Burmese or Chinese instructors who were not fully qualified.
Diving sites in some parts of the region around Phi Phi and Phuket ''are still not good enough'' and needed time to recover to better standards, he saids.
Another dive industry representative who also wished to remain anonymous said the system where some dive agents sent their customers to dive with other organisations led to abuses and he knew of cases where police had failed to act on allegations of fraud.
''We hope to create a special area for green tourism,'' said Paitoon Panchaiyaphum, a former head of the Phuket Marine Department who moved to Bangkok earlier this year.
''We also aim to come up with a system to allow us to easily check the qualification of dive instructors and to create a blacklist,'' he said.
Khun Paitoon was speaking at a meeting of about 100 representatives from the dive industry at the Merlin Hotel to focus on Thailand Recreational Diving Regulations.
Sea walkers, with handrails usually driven into the sand and operators attracting fish to the spot, were yet to be governed by regulations and contunied to operate by agreement with authorities, he said.
''Once the handrail is in at least further damage is limited,'' Khun Paitoon said.
The movement towards an Asean Economic community next year posed fresh issues for the diving industry, the meeting heard, with Russians and Europeans not coming in such numbers because of economic fluctuations.
In private interviews on the sidelines of the main meeting, a veteran instructor who wishes to remain anonymous said that in his experience, some dive companies produced the appropriate accrerditation when authorities requested it but left divers to descend with less well qualified Burmese or Chinese instructors who were not fully qualified.
Diving sites in some parts of the region around Phi Phi and Phuket ''are still not good enough'' and needed time to recover to better standards, he saids.
Another dive industry representative who also wished to remain anonymous said the system where some dive agents sent their customers to dive with other organisations led to abuses and he knew of cases where police had failed to act on allegations of fraud.
