STOP Shark Finning in Australia

The authorities of Queensland, Australia, are planning to provide licences for shark finning on the Great Barrier Reef !

There is general consensus that shark numbers are dramatically low world wide due to over fishing, shark finning, by catch etc... Sharks are the apex predetors of the marine eco system and play a vital role in keeping the natural balance in our oceans.

Great is our concern and astonishement that in an era where we all realize that conservation of our natural resources on land and in the sea has never been higher up the political agenda, licenses like this are granted through an official governing body.

Please join the petition on line so we can persuade the Australians other wise...

Scuba Junction Beach Clean Up

High season is in full swing with the island buzzing of people. In the wake of this increase of people unfortunately also the amount of rubbish left behind dramatically increases.

On our weekly beach clean up 3 of our staff member (Tony, Alex and Koen) collected 25 kg of garbage just in a few hours.

The bulk of this was mainly glass bottles (left behind after a night of partying), cigarette butts, plastic bags. straws, batteries etc.

It goes without saying that what is left on the beach gets washed in the ocean and many items we carelessly leave behind are extremely dangerous for marine life.

Plastic bags can take upto 1000 years before nature can break them down and in the sea they are often mistaken for jelly fish which are a food source for many fish and turtles.
Plastic will never digest and slowly kills those who swallow it.

It is a bit the same story with cigarette butts which take upto 5 years for nature to break down and causes a lot of stomach damage to marine creatures who mistake this for food.

You can find more on the effects of trash and how long it takes nature to naturally desolve our garbage on the Green Fins website and on this download.

Hopefully we can all start to look out a little bit better and not carelessly leave behind garbage as it will kill many sea creature for many years to come.

Green Fins Diving on Koh Tao

JJ ,Timea and Emily


Green Fins representatives Chloe and JJ are visiting Koh Tao to assess its members and provide extra training on the Reef Watch Monitoring and Data Collection.

Yesterday morning Chloe, JJ, Emily (Padi DMT), Timea (SSI DiveCon Trainee) and myself went out to 2 dive sites to collect data.


Chumphon Pinnacle is recovering from illegal fishing and the corals don't seem to have suffered too much from the abandoned net (removed by Crystal Divers).

A healthier fish population was found around Hin Pee Wee, a less dived site on Koh Tao, which shows that controlling the number of divers is important.

Coral variety on both locations are good, all though very slight indications of bleaching and algae point to higher water temperatures and higher pollution with nutrients.

Scuba Junction will keep monitoring Koh Tao's reefs on a weekly basis, the data collected is submitted on line in the Green Fins International Reef Watch Database.

Coral Reef Monitoring

Jay, Ben and Tessa are our first PADI DMTs to start our new Coral Reef Monitoring program as part of their training with us.

Coral Reef Ecology and Coral Reef Monitoring will be integrated in our PADI Dive Master and SSI Dive Control Specialist training.

After being initiated in reef data collection techniques and coral reef ecology, they are ready now to collect data for the GREEN FINS and UNEP world wide coral reef data base. This information will help monitor the health of precious coral reefs world wide and, with the support of local governments, help implement measures to avoid future damage and reverse existing damage.

Koh Tao is already a good example of how the local community can create awareness to influence decision making politicians.
A special advisor of the Thai Prime Minister has visited Koh Tao twice this year already to listen to concerns of sustainable tourism development in the proximity of coral reefs.
The example of Phuket where local reefs get suffocated in land run off after unsupervised development is very much avoidable.

Together with GREEN FINS and our local run Marine Conservation Project Koh Tao, Scuba Junction tries to support both initiative through training, education and volunteer work.