2021 is a critical year for the ocean, and it needs you.

Protecting the ocean means protecting your livelihood. As the world’s largest professional diver organization, we don’t just want to #savetheocean, we need to.

As a dive professional, your actions guide the norms of our industry, powerfully impacting diver behaviour for the better, or worse. Your impact is in your hands, and we invite you to stand up for the ocean and inspire others to do the same.

A powerful tool in doing just that is The Reef-World Foundation’s Green Fins Code of Conduct.

Who is The Reef-World Foundation?

The Reef-World Foundation is a charity recognised as the leading voice on practical sustainability solutions for the scuba diving and snorkelling industry. For the last 2+ years, PADI has worked in partnership with The Reef World Foundation to realise the potential of our community as an example of how a global industry can successfully support people, planet and profit.

Reef-World’s work has been proven to reduce threats to one of the world’s most valuable ecosystems: coral reefs. Our shared vision is to make sustainable diving and snorkelling the social norm, achieving this through the implementation of the Green Fins initiative – in partnership with the UN Environment Programme.

Through Green Fins, Reef-World drives sustainable behaviours for environmental protection by providing low-cost and practical solutions to local and industry-wide environmental challenges associated with marine tourism. It offers education and capacity-building assistance to empower environmental champions (within the diving industry, local communities, authorities and governments) to implement proven coastal resource management approaches.

What is Green Fins?

Green Fins is a proven conservation management approach which leads to a measurable reduction in the negative environmental impacts associated with marine tourism. It provides the only internationally recognised environmental standards for marine tourism and its assessment system measures compliance. By reducing the pressures tourism puts on coral reefs, it helps make corals healthier and more resilient to other stresses such as the effects of climate change.

As the initiative is delivered in partnership with national governments, it is currently available in a limited number of countries including Antigua & Barbuda, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Palau, Singapore, Thailand, The Maldives, the Philippines, Vietnam and soon-to-be Japan, Guam and Timor-Leste. Operators in these regions work together with a Green Fins representative to identify ways to reduce negative environmental impact, and agree together on three achievable actions to take over the following year.

However, Green Fin’s Code of Conduct is available worldwide in multiple languages, and it’s completely free to adopt! Have you considered implementing the Green Fins Code of Conduct at your dive shop?

What is the Code of Conduct?

The Green Fins Code of Conduct provides the only internationally recognized environmental standards for scuba diving and snorkelling operations. All PADI Centers who currently dive in coral reef environments can commit to following 15 environmental practices of the Green Fins Code of Conduct and use the materials to help educate your staff, colleagues and guests on sustainable diving best practices.

Throughout 2021, each month we’ll be highlighting a different environmental practice from the Green Fins Code of Conduct. Regardless of where you are in your sustainability journey, we invite you, your staff and your colleagues to join us on this exploratory mission, peeking into the future norms of our industry. Go ahead and adopt each one as we go along, and by the end of the year, together we will have achieved a global industry shift to be proud of!

Take Action in February: Download the Green Fins Code of Conduct Poster (below, available in multiple languages) and share it with your staff, colleagues and divers. Start the conversation: How many of the points are you already hitting?

The post Introducing The Reef-World Foundation’s Green Fins Code of Conduct appeared first on PADI Pros.

Conservation, Code of Conduct, conservation, Green Fins, Reef World FoundationPADI Pros