Ever wonder when you choose to do your dive course (either the beginner level of Open Water, or the Advance, Specialty or Rescue), why you pay so much money for the manual you use during your training? Well, me too!

As an ambassador for a very large certification organization, I have gone and completed more courses than the casual diver. However, you and I should wonder in this day and age of environmental conscious, reducing carbon foot print, save the rain forest, or cut down CO2 emission etc., why on earth are paper products still being printed, wrapped, packaged, driven, loaded, shipped, unloaded, driven, stocked, re-packed, loaded, shipped, unloaded, driven, stocked, and finally delivered to you, the student diver? Why organizations who preach conservation would continue with this wasteful business practice and environmental unfriendly education model? Is the answer lied somewhere in the name of protecting intellectual property or cold hard cash or just lip service?

Anyway, here’s the journey...

A diver manual (any language) is printed somewhere in the US of A. It is then wrapped, packed, driven to a dock and shipped to another continent (let’s say Sydney, Australia) where it will be driven (picked up) from a shipping dock to a warehouse, stored, and is ready to be sold. Once it is sold, the diver manual is re-packed, driven (or picked-up) to a dock, shipped to the buyer in let’s say another continent (Thailand, Asia). However, its journey is not done. The poor diver manual will be unpacked, fondled & flipped (custom officer duty), re-packed, driven, then un-packed and stored at a warehouse, awaiting you the diver to book the dive course.

You can free this poor diver manual from its wasteful journey by booking a diver course. The diver manual is then get sold to a dive school where you will take the dive course. Then, it gets picked-up, wrapped, written on, driven to the post office (or dive center), and then handed to you, the rightfully owner, the one who set it free... at a cost of 3,477 THB, if it was an open water course manual.

am I the only one that is questioning this method of environmental damaging & cost ineffective business model? As a consumer, shouldn’t you ask is it really necessary?

My thought:

1. southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam, & Cambodia) is the most traveled destination for tropical holiday makers, and avid divers. Why can it pay for the right to distribute dive manuals? Is the printing machine out here not as good as the US of A?
2. do you think Mc Donald would ship any of their products in the same manner to stores around the globe?
   
3. Have any of these dive organizations heard about digital manual?
4. Since new diver certifications are decreasing annually, wouldn’t it be better to put as many of the digital open water manuals into the hands of interested divers FOC?
5. Ah, lost of revenue in book sales of it’s free, not to worry. Why not raise the certification card fee to cover the net profit margin?
   
6. Isn’t it better to have the rain forest last a little longer by cutting the use of paper product, even by just 10%?

Well, it’s just my jumble thought... But all of you environmentally conscious divers must wonder the same, and shouldn’t take rules, policies, or blah blah blah as a cope out answer.

Is the life of a tree any less important than a coral? Or a reef any more important than a forest?