Thailand Closes Diving Sites to Protect Corals

Some of Thailand’s most popular diving sites are now off limits to tourists: Thai officials announced on Thursday that they were restricting access to seven marine national parks for up to a year to prevent further harm to coral reefs severely damaged by a long period of elevated sea temperatures last year.

Tourists standing on living coral off Taru Island in the Gulf of Thailand.Reefs are plentiful in Thailand and serve as a major tourist draw, and the announcement met with opposition from some hotel and tourism operators. More than 80 percent of the corals at 18 dive sites have undergone bleaching, a symptom of severe stress caused by excessively warm water temperatures. Corals can recover from bleaching, but if the stress is too acute, they die.

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