Pattaya will designate 39 spots where tourists can walk on the ocean bottom without, hopefully, further damaging the marine ecosystem.
Deputy Mayor Ronakit Ekasingh chaired a June 29 meeting with Thanet Mannoy, secretary of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, and sea-walker operators to discuss operational areas, methods and licensing regulations.
The meeting came after photos of tourist “sea walkers” moving delicate coral in the sea off Koh Larn (in English, Coral Island) went viral, prompting the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to order snap inspections and a crackdown on the firms offering sea walking.
Local, regional and national officials have been aware of the risks posed by unregulated sea-walking businesses since 2002, when the Science and Technology Institute and Tourism Authority of Thailand met in Pattaya to say that sea-walker companies could operate, but must coordinate with the standards set by the authorities.
Fast-forward 19 years and sea walker firms and divers are just as unregulated and reckless as they were at the turn of the century. Crackdowns, licenses and regulations have been promised countless times but, even after an Indian tourist died sea walking seven years ago, nothing has changed.
One encouraging sign, however, is that none of those previously promised crackdowns included talk to specify underwater zones where divers could walk.
Puchong Saritdeechaikul, Director of Marine and Coastal Resources Administration Office 2, said the 39 zones will be around Koh Larn and Koh Sak, but their exact locations have not been determined yet.
He said that Pattaya’s battered underwater environment has recovered greatly during the coronavirus pandemic due to a stark drop in the number of scuba divers, sea walkers, snorkelers and tourist boats. The department doesn’t want to sacrifice the gains made in the past 18 months by allowing sea walkers to return to business as usual, he said.
Draft regulations reviewed at the meeting will require all sea walker operators to be licensed and subject to inspection of their boats, equipment, training and safety practices.
Feedback collected at the meeting will be baked into the draft rules, which will be voted on at a future meeting after the underwater zones are
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