In your opinion,how important is the subject of cave conservation/preservation
In your opinion,how important is the subject of cave conservation/preservation
Well in simple terms, no caves= no cave diving. Its important.
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I think that can be a trick question.
I could say "I think cave conservation/preservation is extremely important" and be telling the truth. To someone who believes the only real way to conserve/protect is to close the caves completely, my statement would seem to agree with their stance and they'd count me among their numbers to close caves. They'd be wrong.
Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to quantify the possibilities. I get very sad when I see destruction and damage in a cave, either by divers, cavers, or by unknowing/uncaring folks on the surface. Yet, if all caves were closed, I'm pretty sure I would never have developed the passion I have for protecting them. It's a dilemma to me, for sure.
Cave conservation is of the utmost importance, provided that said conservation doesn't prevent me from diving them!
Now I see Shirley's post. She has this just right. In order for people to care about a natural asset and be interested in conserving it, they need to know about it and get some benefit from it. It has been illustrated many times here in the great north woods that allowing access to wild country develops a constituency of people who care about it and are willing to work to protect it. If access is just denied to everyone, the number of people who will care about conserving it (whether a cave or a wilderness area) drops off precipitously.
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Originally Posted by jxh2297
Conservation is rarely about the total destruction of caves. There's defacement, such as the loss of geothite, the breaking of stalactites, or the marring of pristine sediment. Then there's pollution from agricultural runoff. Those activities are very harmful to the cave environment and our enjoyment of the caves, but the caves still exist.
I think you have to define conservation / preservation. I define it as avoiding needless, reckless damage,
Even if you or your equipment touch nothing in the cave, your presence has an impact, even if your CCR.
It's such a grey area that I think others here have touched on well.
Perfectly worded Shirley. I very much agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by sskasser
Brian
I agree with Shirley.
I think conservation and preservation also take priority over being polite on the internet.
Not really. You can get your point across, and still have the other person listen, if you are polite.Quote:
Originally Posted by SuPrBuGmAn
We have completely lost several caves here in the Bahamas. An amazing crystal marine cave was completely dredged up when they built the container port in Freeport...No passage left. There are huge crystal formations sitting on street corners in peoples yards.
A terrestrial cave in Nassau which was home to 50 or more buffy flower bats was completely removed in order to make room for a road to some new condos...no passage left..completely removed.
Our power plant here on Abaco filled in more than a dozen sinkholes with clear water in them when they built the road to the new power plant...filled them with boulders and truck loads of cement.
The new government building in Marsh Harbor was built on top of a terrestrial cave that was filled with rebar and truckloads of cement so the new building would not fall in (the bats had to move somewhere else).
In countries that are riddled with limestone caves (Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexico), the need for development will always win out over caves. Sadly it happens so often that we now need to triage and pick our battles for conservation carefully. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that we cannot save them all, but we never give up and continue to protect anything we can by creating a presence, education and contiued exploration and research.
All sad but true.
preserving a stalactite that no one ever sees, seems wasteful.
There is no time anyone should use conservation or preservation as an excuse or permission for unacceptable behavior. The attention it draws is short lived and unfavorable in the long run.Quote:
Originally Posted by SuPrBuGmAn
I had pretty much Shirley's reaction to the question. And some of it goes to what one means by "conservation". I do not think that maintaining all caves in an untouched condition is sufficiently important to restrict diver access to them. I think all divers should endeavor, as best they can, to leave the cave as they found it, for the enjoyment of the next person, just as we should do in all beautiful natural sites.
The question of overall cave conservation, as Brian describes, is a bit thornier. Keeping pollution out of aquifers has an obvious, immediate benefit, since many communities derive their drinking water from those aquifers. But whether, in the overall scheme of things, it is "important" to preserve the existence of caves, or the access to caves, is harder to answer. Important to whom, and in what way? If we measure importance in terms of overall benefit to humans (which we tend to do), it's probably better for the Mexican or Bahamas communities to build resorts and hotels that provide employment and raise the standard of living, than to preserve underwater conduits, no matter how spectacularly beautiful.
I am reminded of a lecture from Jean-Michel Cousteau, in which he said that it is not enough to tell people, "You shall not dynamite the reef!" You have to provide them with a way in which they can turn that change in behavior into a way that they and their families can eat. It's the same with the caves; if no short-term benefit of having them is apparent to people, they will not preserve them. And although it's easy for us, with our televisions and our cell phones and our laptops, to criticize the development decisions made elsewhere, it's equally important to realize that the imperatives that move people may be quite different in other places. If you want to change behavior, you have to change those imperatives.
Normally a lurker but this topic struck a cord with me. There is a BIG difference between conservation and preservation.
Preservation is being free is human influence. IE: state and national parks. They have few area which you can visit and enjoy. (the campsites and trails... more conservation based) but the rest of the park is essentially off limits. You can't even pick up dead branches for firewood from trees without being yelled at for 'molesting' the forest, much less decide to go off trail.
Conservation is using human management to maintain the state that it was before humans were involved. IE: state and national forests and bureau of land management lands. This is using sustainable practices to manage the land for everyone's enjoyment. You can camp where you want, as long as you do not damage the forest as a whole.
Their order for us to "preserve" the caves we would have to close them all to divers. To be free of human influence. Conserving them is to try to keep them in a sustainable state for many years to come.
Do I think that the caves should be closed to everyone in the sake of preservation? No, absolutely not. I believe we need to conserve them. To use our management to keep them as close as possible to a natural state as we can but realizing no matter what we do we will still have an impact. Just as we will have an impact when they are closed by our heavy use of water and pesticides and herbicides by neighboring farms.
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Originally Posted by LCF
Exactly what I am getting to. We need to leave the cave in as close to a manner as we found it but realize that we will have an impact. That is "conservation." We need to have these precious resources around in a sustainable manner. Local communities depend on them whether we like it or not. Be it the money that is brought to them by us visiting and diving or the water from the spring that is being brought to the taps of millions of homes.
There are evaluations done by the Florida water management districts that determine how much water can be taken from a system without harming the ecosystems around them. They determine how long high, low and median water levels are needed in order to keep the lands around the rivers and lakes in the state in order to maintain the natural communities around them. I believe that these evaluation should be expanded to include the springs and their discharges, not just the wetlands around them. In my mind our effects as divers are minimal compared to the neglect to include these resources in those determinations. The same determinations that dictate how much water can be drawn for use in homes as well as industries such as water bottling plant.
That's always been the rub, different people define "conservation" differently.
Most cavers and cave divers can agree that it's important, but often disagree strongly in some aspects of how that should be implemented.
I think the best thing we could do is decide on some general baseline. A point at which the vast majority of the community can agree and apply that consistently. For instance most of us can probably agree that a rarely beautiful formation cave is worth the expense of detouring a major road, while some little 50' long suckhole may not be. At least here, other places maybe it is, but we're lousy with them.
Beyond that apply a more stringent measure where it is appropriate. Like limiting visitation time to bat caves.
But we also have to realize that caves are usually nothing more than a passing novelty to most people. This is why it's important to approach others with a sense of cooperation rather than as an adversary. Compromise may be the best one can hope for, but even that often depends on others buying into the idea that caves should be preserved in some manner.
Take them on trips, show them a good time, educate them about what's there, show them video and photos. If you can get land owners / managers, agencies, companies interested in the resource they control then you can start to achieve bigger gains. And it does often come down to economics. It may cost them a significant amount to preserve a cave, we need to help show them what they're getting for that expense.
My Grandfather taught me this saying:Quote:
Originally Posted by FW
"If you want somebody to really remember something, then you have to either hurt their feelings or piss them off"
Every person that has met me still remembers me.
Remembering is different than getting them to agree with you, or following your example. If you anger them, they will only remember you, and not pay any attention to what you were trying to get across.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dsix36
...it could be argued that being polite doesn't get you heard.Quote:
Originally Posted by FW
Either way is better than ignoring the problem, which is the biggest problem I've noticed lately with cave divers in general.
Well not just because we are cave divers here but I think that I think that it would be really nice to maintain and conserve the caves that we are to undertake just to preserve the ecosystem. The balance should still be intact and whatever thing is bound when you go out must still be dealt with in the same fashion, whatever way it will be seen fit. Just my two cents worth though.
Agreed but in the grand scheme of things it's really not that important, conservation of caves simply means prettier caves for a VERY small populace to enjoy underwater........unless Im missing something cave condition doesn't affect water quality, food supply, weather patterns, availability of natural resources, medical supplies, etc............
So it's really not that important...........
conservation of caves is more about what happens above the ground than what happens under the ground.
and "polite" is like beauty. we all have a different definition.
skip
I agree that it starts at the surface. Nitrates are causing too much growth with grasses and hydrilla. Overpumping of the aquafer is thought to be the reason many springs and sinks are at record lows in depth and flow. It seems to only be getting worse. The vast majority never see the flooded caves.
Bulls eye! My take on it is that if you aren't willing to protect them, you don't deserve access. If you don't get pissed off about cave destruction Then you aren't really passionate about caves and springs. I have been diving Florida springs and sinks off and on for almost 40 years, and I would give up access if I thought it would save the springs. It won't, but if it did, I would do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by SuPrBuGmAn