2003 Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages 47-52
Outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish Acanthaster planci have repeatedly occurred on Okinawan coral reefs, Japan, since the 1960s. The only countermeasure to the outbreaks has been to hand-collect individual starfish. To identify the characteristics of professional divers who are willing to participate in starfish control programs, we administered a questionnaire to 254 diving shops and marine leisure outlets as well as to 45 fishing cooperatives in Okinawa. Among the attributes of respondents, only the type of job affected the willingness, while others, including the number of years of diving experience, frequency of diving, former participation in control program, did not. Divers from the tourism sector were willing to participate in control/monitoring programs more than those from the fishery sector. Involving divers from the tourism industry may help develop an effective system to control and monitor the starfish. As the tourism and marine leisure industries grow, the existing management system exclusively influenced by the fishery sector needs to be supplemented with a multi-sectoral coral reef management regime.
