Legal measures for controlling recreational scuba diving business in Thailand

Many dive sites in Thailand are always ranked as top dive sites of the world because of the beautiful and diversity of coral reef, fish and many more marine lives. In the last few years, the underwater world of Thailand can attract more than hundred thousand tourists each year to travel and discovery. Scuba diving industry can earn huge amount of income per year. While Thailand natural resource attracts many tourists, the tourists attract entrepreneurs. As a result, scuba diving business is growing up. However, growing of scuba diving business has caused many problems such as foreigners come to Thailand work illegally as an instructor or dive leader, diver’s death and injury from negligence operation and natural resources decadent from over capacity usage by scuba diving business. Generally, problems in scuba diving business are involved in public safety, human resources, and natural resources. One major reason is that Thailand is not well-experienced in this field of business; therefore, Thai laws and legal measures may not be efficient to organize and control the diving business. The Tourism Business and Guide Act B.E. 2551 does not support tourism business license registrations of every scuba diving business because a small and medium dive center that has no boat will take advantage of this gap of law to operate without license. Moreover, without governmental organizations having experts in scuba diving to control and inspect quality of scuba diving operators and professionals and to lay down recreational scuba diving standards or policies, low quality services have caused scuba diving accidents. In case of environmental protection, some dive areas outside national parks are not being legally protected on wildlife collection and feeding while scuba diving. There is also no limitation of diver in such areas that causes the over usage of marine resources. Besides, some diver-attractive animal are not under protection of any law even they are the highlight of scuba diving in Thailand. This thesis aims to focus on legal measures of the United States, Australia and the Philippines which are used to conduct recreational scuba diving business, protect public safety, and conserve natural resources in order to provide recommended ways that may be able to use to prevent problems from scuba diving business in Thailand.泰国诸多潜水胜地素来跻身全球顶级潜水目的地之列，这得益于当地斑斓多姿的珊瑚礁、各类鱼类及丰富多样的其他海洋生物。过去数年间，泰国的水下世界每年可吸引超十万名游客前来旅行探秘，水肺潜水（Scuba Diving）产业每年亦能创造巨额营收。泰国的自然资源固然吸引游客，而游客群体也催生了相关行业的创业者，水肺潜水业务随之蓬勃发展。然而，该行业的扩张也引发了诸多问题：例如外籍人士非法赴泰担任潜水教练或领队、因操作疏忽导致潜水员伤亡，以及水肺潜水业务过度开发导致自然资源退化。总体而言，水肺潜水行业的问题主要涉及公共安全、人力资源与自然资源三大维度。究其核心缘由，泰国在该业务领域缺乏成熟运营经验，因此现有法律与执法措施难以有效规范和管控潜水行业。《旅游商业与导游法（佛历2551年）》并未要求所有水肺潜水业务均需办理旅游经营许可证，这使得无自有船只的中小型潜水中心得以利用法律空白无照经营。此外，由于政府机构中缺乏水肺潜水领域的专业人才，无法对潜水经营者及从业人员的资质进行管控与核查，也未能制定休闲水肺潜水（Recreational Scuba Diving）的行业标准与政策，因此服务质量低下最终引发了多起潜水事故。在环境保护层面，国家公园外的部分潜水区域并未针对潜水活动中的野生动物采集与投喂行为建立合法保护机制，此类区域也未对潜水人数设置限制，进而导致海洋资源被过度消耗。除此之外，部分极具潜水吸引力的海洋物种即便作为泰国潜水项目的核心亮点，也未受到任何法律保护。本论文旨在梳理美国、澳大利亚与菲律宾三国用于规范休闲水肺潜水业务、保障公共安全及保护自然资源的法律措施，以期为泰国解决水肺潜水行业现存问题提供可行的建议方案。