楽しみとしての＜自然＞保護

――インド洋津波後のタイ南部アンダマン海におけるサンゴ修復ボランティア――

抄録

  The Andaman Sea’s maritime environments are a major attraction for international tourists visiting Southern Thailand. Especially coral reefs of the Similan and Slin Islands are one of the most popular resources for tourist use and generate great revenues through tourism activities. Scuba diving is one of the major tourist attractions, which satisfies tourists’ desire to spend leisure time in ‘natural’ settings. Since 1980s, mass tourism in Southern Thailand grew rapidly and has become to receive more than 4 million arrivals every year. It is estimated that 5% or more of the international tourists join a diving tour. Today many biologists and professional divers have raised the concern that scuba diving may bring a significant threat to coral reefs in the Andaman Sea. Cumulative effects of environmental disturbances made by divers can cause the significant decline of coral cover and losses of biodiversity. The rapid expansion of diving tourism results in the increase of burdens on coral reefs but no solution for sustainable development has been found. It seems difficult to reform the diving industry in the region for reducing negative environmental effects.

  In view of the circumstances mentioned above, this paper aims to explore latent demands for nature protection as a business with pleasure. The focus of this paper is to describe how volunteer professional divers responded to the crisis of maritime environment brought by the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004 and to analyze their attitudes toward protection of ‘nature’ with which they have close contact as a tourist guide.

  The tsunami devastated the Andaman coastline in Southern Thailand. It severely affected many marine ecosystems in the region, especially coral reefs of Similan, Slin, Phi Phi and other islands where there were current channels. Immediate assistance to the affected corals and sea fans was provided by volunteer professional divers, in partnership with marine biologists from government agencies and educational institutes. Some hundreds of diving instructors and/or guides from internationally famous tourist areas such as Phuket and Khaorak participated in the coral rehabilitation project. Activities to assist coral recovery included removal of debris and rubbish, replacing living corals so as to improve their chance of survival and using a wedge to attach them to the rocks.

  The motivation behind the volunteer divers’ participation in the coral rehabilitation project was an outburst of altruistic devotion but at the same time they much enjoyed the underwater and on-the-boat activities needed to recover corals. Analyzing their experience to find amusement in coral rehabilitation project, this paper tries to present an alternative value of voluntary works in nature protection.