Recently, South Africa's Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) announced that recreational divers swimming in the country's marine protected areas would be required to purchase a permit. Beginning January 1, 2007, all divers will be required to keep their $11 permits, or certified copies of them, on the boats they are diving from, or in their vehicles if they dive from shore. Dive operators are exempt from the tax.

So stirred up was Cape Town's dive community that they sought legal opinion on the matter. Arguing that the MCM is not entitled to make rules to control recreational uses of the sea that do not entail the consumption of marine resources (swimming, surfing, diving), the divers believe the MCM is acting beyond its powers in compelling them to buy these permits. Quite logically, Monty Guest, chairperson of the False Bay Underwater Club argued that, "Fishermen kill sharks in marine protected areas and nothing happens to them, but we cannot even swim underwater to watch marine life without buying a permit. There are sewerage outfalls pumping effluent into the marine protected area and nothing is done..." MCM countered that it is allowed to regulate non-consumptive use of the ocean if a particular activity causes damage to the environment. And we all know how destructive divers can be.

In high bureaucratic style, the government informed the divers that they could get the permit legislation overturned -- but that would require high court action that could take three years and cost in excess of $70,000.

Of course, eleven bucks seems like a small tax, but is it fair?