Yimnang Golbuu, PICRC chief researcher, explained that they want to find out two things for this survey: the impact of tourists on the resources, such as fish and the corals, and the impact of tourists on each other.
“In Koror State, for example, you get a lot of tourists coming to visit. We’re not really sure how this is affecting the dive sites and the environment,” Yimnang said. “I think it’s important for the states to be able to effectively manage their sites.”
Golbuu added that they have started the biological survey – by looking at the fishes, corals, how much of the area is covered by corals, what are the species present, etc. — on 18 different sites on February 26.
“We tried to look at places outside and inside the popular dive sites,” he said.
The sites are divided into three: the open sites, Ngemelis dive sites where fishing is not allowed, and the Peleliu sites where there are areas that fishing is allowed. According to Golbuu, they also want to find out if their survey will produce different results between dive sites and non-dive sites.
The project is just on its first phase so they still haven’t analyzed the results of the biological survey yet. At present, they’re developing a set of questions for the social part of the survey. “The next step will be looking at the perceptions of tourists on the resources and on each other,” Golbuu added.
The questionnaire will focus mainly on how the divers feel about the resources and how they feel about the number of divers.
“We want to find out how the social and biological surveys will match and how the two will relate to the condition that we measure,” explained Golbuu.
They plan to complete the survey within the year.
