Underwater Military Museum - Alternative Dive Sites

From monitoring only to finding solutions

(The Sinking of equipment to create artificial reefs and new diving sites)

With the increase in development rates, which took place intensively in some areas of the Red Sea Governorate, such as the city of Hurghada, followed by an unprecedented increase in the tourist flow, which resulted in an increase in diving rates on the natural coral reefs, as it reached in some sites more than 200 thousand dives per site per year, with Note that safe diving rates on the coral reefs of the Red Sea have been estimated at no more than 22,000 dives per site per year.

Believing in the association that the responsibility for preserving the environment is basically a participatory task, all segments of society and its organizations must work to contribute to developing solutions and directing towards the sustainable use of unique and sensitive living resources such as the resources of the Red Sea. Hence, the association took it upon itself to find solutions to the excessive use of natural coral reefs. And in close technical cooperation with the Red Sea Reserves Sector, where the observation and monitoring operations indicated that there is a deterioration in a number of sites in front of the city of Hurghada as a result of excessive use by divers and snorkeling practitioners, and it was necessary to move from monitoring and viewing to action and taking measures to reduce the excessive use of these resources.

From here, HEPCA developed a vision to create artificial coral reefs by dumping predicted equipment as new diving sites in front of Hurghada. The idea received all support from the Red Sea Governorate and the Ministry of Environment. This step aims to:

1- Establishing new diving sites to relieve pressures resulting from diving on natural coral reefs.

2- Introducing and promoting the sport of diving on the sunken antiquities in Hurghada city sector, as there are many fans of diving on the sunken antiquities around the world.

3- This sunken equipment will turn within a few years into natural coral reefs and will increase the natural stock of fish.

4- Increasing the number of diving sites by adding these artificial coral reefs will allow the implementation of a plan for managing diving sites based on their absorptive capacity in terms of the number of times of diving per site per year, and thus shifting the diving industry to the sustainability of this important activity for the Egyptian national income.

5- This project has established the idea of participatory work between civil society organizations represented by the Environment Preservation Association (HEPCA), the Red Sea Reserves (Ministry of Environment) and the Red Sea Governorate to work side by side as partners in preserving and exploiting Egypt's natural wealth, which abounds in the Red Sea. sustainably and preserved as an inherent right for future generations.

6- The success of this project will be a successful solution to the imposed use of coral reefs for diving and snorkeling purposes. It is scheduled to add four more sites in the Hurghada region in the near future for the complete transformation from excessive use of natural coral reefs to sustainable use.

7- Such a project will be one of the great steps to preserve the Egyptian coral reefs, which have been classified as one of the last coral refuges in the world, as they are deteriorating around the world as a result of climate changes, and accordingly, international organizations considered them as a hopeful spot for preserving coral on the planet, and caring for conservation With such projects, it will add to Egypt's cultural reputation a lot

In view of the importance and enormity of this event, all parties, led by the Ministry of Environment and the Red Sea Governorate, considered it a regional and international event. A celebration of this