Many years ago I visited Outer Reef on the Great Barrier Reef. The tour operators were very strict about standing on the coral, which largely due to this request, was pristine.
I have just returned from a cruise to New Caledonia, the location of the second largest barrier reef in the world, where we visited 4 different locations. The last, the Isle of Pines was supposedly the best as far as the condition of the reef and coral was concerned.
It was saddening to see around a 1000 people basically doing what they wanted with no regard to the health of the reef. The coral was trashed. It looked like a gravel pit. Only in water too deep for people to stand on the coral was there any indication of 'healthy' coral, and I use the word 'healthy' with reservations. Unlike the Great Barrier Reef, the coral was covered in parasitic plant life that is effectively choking the coral.
Add to that nickel mining where the tailings are dumped into the sea. The effect that this has on the oceans ecology doesn't need much thought to determine the outcome.
The cruise organisers push the passengers to organise their land based activities by paying for pre-organised tours on-board, which is always more than similar tours on offer by the locals at the location the ship is berthed. Approximately half of the people who were partaking in swimming activity in the morning were back on the ship by lunch time for the free lunch on offer at the buffet. So the net effect on the local economy from more than half of the people I saw who went to the islands was 'zero'. The same cannot be said about the impact those same people had standing on the coral.
Many of the locals inhabitants of the islands had food and drinks for sale, but there were very few people buying from the locals from my observations.
This was my first and last cruise. They are organised in a manner to maximise the amount of money the cruise operator can make and little regard is given to the inhabitants of the islands/locations they visit.
Here is a perfect example, not 2 weeks ago Vanuatu was flattened by cyclone Pam. Now one of the islands they visit on this particular cruise was Mystery Island, which is uninhabited. The cruise operator drops passengers off by tender, and locals from surrounding islands make their way to Mystery Island to offer food, drink and souvenirs for sale. Due to the cyclone, Mystery Island was bypassed, and another island in the New Caledonia Loyalty Island chain was added to the itinerary. I boarded the ship thinking that there would be some means by which the cruise operators would give people an opportunity to make donations to the islanders surrounding Mystery Island who rely on the tourists visiting the island for their income. There was nothing, not so much as a mention in passing of cyclone Pam and absolutely no mention of the effect the cyclone has had on Vanuatu. That is how much cruise operators care about the inhabitants of the islands/locations they deposit their passengers. In my opinion, they couldn't give a sh!t about the local economies and ecologies in which they operate.
The island in New Caledonia that was substituted for Mystery island is not favoured by the cruise operator because the nearest beach is a 20 minute bus ride which is strictly controlled by the locals, but paid for on the ship. What percentage the islanders get of the bus fee, I don't know, but bet your boots it's not 100% of what the ship collects. When Vanuatu recovers, which they will, and without the help of the cruise organisers, the cruise ship will bypass the New Caledonia location with the 20 minute bus ride and revert back to Mystery Island who will have recovered without any help from those same people who come in their 1000's to trash their pristine beaches.
If the indigenous people of the Kimberley want to protect their home and ecology against the cruise operators and the 1000's of people they deposit onto their pristine beaches, I wish them all the luck in the world. But I don't hold any hope for their success against the money machines that the cruise operators are.
