Reef Worlds

Patric Douglas has been "gone" for a while - at least from the shark diving industry.  I have only seen a few sporadic posts here and there on Facebook, but it seems like he has been really busy.  Patric was part of the "old school" (not that old either) shark industry and had a loud voice.  Some liked him and others hated him for it - while we did not always see eye-to-eye there were several thing we could agree on. (Even though he once removed our blog from his blog list - no hard feelings)

One of my favorite projects that Patric worked on was Shark Free Marina - which now seems to have rebranded itself as Shark Friendly Marina --- a great effort to promote shark conservation at a local level that grew organically.  Patric is now working on a new project - not shark related, but ocean related.  

Reef Worlds in Patric's words: "Near shore resort reefs are in severe decline around the world. This is best exampled by the Caribbean where close to 80% of reefs are in decline or gone completely.

What *if* resorts around the world treated their near shore reefs as they did with their landscaping, what if they actually considered the oceans past the high tide mark offering an estimated 500 million tourists each year a chance to interact, become educated, and save the oceans at the same time?

To accomplish this resorts would need an incentive. Their new house reefs would have to be fully monetized because resort developers and resort management companies like Starwood do not do anything that does not add to the bottom line - and rightfully so."

I think Patric is on to something...make sure you follow his new blog (will not be a fire-started) and Reef Worlds.