South Africa Bans Diving

[Foo2]

I received this in email from Undercurrent. Just wondering if we had and South African divers to shine some light on this.

South Africa Bans Diving : The country's environmental minister has banned diving and snorkeling starting February 1 along most of the Cape of Good Hope to protect abalone stocks. The new law will not affect great white shark cage diving trips, which take place further offshore. Divers are up in arms and creating petitions, saying the government should increase anti-poaching efforts instead of "attacking those abiding the law," and the World Wildlife Foundation has also joined the protest.

[scubaculture]

Yeah they were debating doing this when I was still there, over a year ago.

They first started requiring divers to have permits to dive, now this. Just the way things work in SA, make things tougher on law abiding people whilst the criminals have free reign. Very sad

[aggie99]

That sucks, if you find a petition I will sign it!

[Zyxistal]

Wow thats crazy.

[kancho]

Though at this moment i have no desire of diving there, but that is a total shame. They should open more environmental tourism. I don't mind some (no high) user fees if the money were to be used for the environment/env. toursim. Do punish law abiding and environmental aware divers is crazy..

[Auscuba]

wow, how can they ban diving?!

Thats like banning everyone from riding bicycles because some riders pick mushrooms while riding, and we "must protect our mushroom stocks".... WHAAA?!

What a crazy country!

[3rdEye]

geez that sucks

[cummings66]

Originally Posted by aggie99

That sucks, if you find a petition I will sign it!

The rest of the world doesn't operate the way we do, a petition isn't likely to do anything other than to point out whom causes trouble and needs to be dealt with.

It's also how our government operates, start small and take away the things few people will scream over, eventually you've got them in a position to take away the big thing you wanted in the first place. That's why any infringement on any rights needs to be addressed right now, don't give an inch because they really want a mile and they'll get it over time if we let them.

Some governments have an easier time of it however.

[scubaculture]

The rest of the world doesn't operate the way we do, a petition isn't likely to do anything other than to point out whom causes trouble and needs to be dealt with.

Sadly there are more pressing problems to deal with there, highest AIDS infection rate in the world, unemployment around 40%, more than 50 murders a day, I could go on and on and on

I love South Africa and miss my family and friends terribly, but unfortunately it is just getting worse and worse there.

[Scubakraut]

This will suck on my RTW trip, as I was planning on going to SA.