Conservation, landowners and responsible access

Almost every underwater cave entrance belongs to someone: a state park, a national forest, a farming community, a private family, a caving society. Whether divers can enter depends on those owners, and the history of cave diving is full of sites that were closed, bought, protected or reopened. This article looks at how access works in the main cave-diving regions and what the published record shows about conservation agreements.

Access is a privilege

The Quintana Roo Speleological Survey (QRSS) puts it plainly: diving in the region's caves is a rare privilege, not a right; permission is extended by the landowner and can be withdrawn if divers abuse it ^[1]. Its code asks divers to be trained and stay within that training, to avoid damaging the cave, to remove litter and waste that could pollute groundwater, and to respect their hosts' wishes and culture. It places a greater duty on instructors and guides to supervise clients and to act as role models towards landowners ^[1]. The National Speleological Society (NSS) and its Cave Diving Section express similar principles, including cooperation with private cave owners and helping them protect their caves and property ^[9].

Florida: access lost, bought and negotiated

Wakulla Springs shows how ownership shapes access. According to the U.S. Deep Caving Team, the spring was owned for some 50 years by financier Edward Ball, and before the State of Florida bought it in autumn 1986 only two groups had ever been legally allowed to explore inside. The state then accepted a proposal for a major exploration and research project, which took place in 1987 ^[6].

Peacock Springs was protected by a conservation purchase. The Florida State Parks history records that The Nature Conservancy bought 250 acres (about 100 hectares) there in 1985 to protect the hardwood forest and cave systems, that the state later acquired the land and opened it as a state park in 1993, and that in 2011 the park was renamed to honour Wes Skiles, a cave diver, filmmaker and springs advocate ^[4]. Access now comes with published conditions. Among them, divers must show proof of certification, sign in, dive in teams of at least two and enter only at designated points; diver propulsion vehicles are prohibited; instructors need a commercial dive permit; and fossils, artefacts, plants and animals must not be disturbed ^[5].

In the Apalachicola National Forest, access was negotiated through standards. The Woodville Karst Plain Project's history records that Parker Turner secured continued access to the Leon Sinks Geological Area by drafting standards for mixed-gas exploration and research in the protected zone, under a permit issued to the exploration and survey committee of the National Association for Cave Diving (NACD). In 1991 supervision of exploration and research diving passed to the WKPP, which describes itself as the qualifying body for such diving in the forest, while recreational access continued under a permit programme ^[7].

Caving organisations also own sites. The NSS owns 19 cave preserves and manages four more, each with a management plan and permit system ^[10]. Its Cave Diving Section owns Cow Springs and School Sink in Florida, restricts them to members under a combined property management plan, and has worked with the owner of Edwards Spring on volunteer clean-up and access facilities ^[8]. Ownership brings responsibilities beyond diving: in January 2026 the NSS was raising money for legal representation to protect its Mill Creek Sink preserve from the effects of nearby development ^[19].

Mexico: ejidos, private land and protected areas

Rural land in Mexico may be privately owned, federal, or held by an ejido. Under Mexico's Agrarian Law, an ejido is a community with its own legal personality that owns the land granted to it; its supreme body is the assembly of all ejido members, and contracts allowing outsiders to use the ejido's common land fall within the assembly's exclusive authority ^[2]. Where a cave entrance lies on ejido common land, a long-term access arrangement is therefore a community decision rather than a private permission. The QRSS's emphasis on courtesy and respect for local culture reflects this ^[1], and the exploration group CINDAQ lists an ejido among the supporters thanked in its 2025 report ^[20].

Other caves lie within federal protected areas. CINDAQ works with Mexico's protected-areas commission (CONANP) in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, with the underwater archaeology branch of the national anthropology institute (INAH), and with UNESCO's 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage ^[3], and it states a vision of a regional model of sustainable tourism and development ^[22]. In April 2025 officials of Mexico's environment ministry (SEMARNAT) said they were analysing a decree to conserve the Quintana Roo cave system under a protection category similar to a biosphere reserve ^[18]. Whether such a decree has been issued was not confirmed for this article.

The Bahamas: from proposal to protected forest

The Bahamas Caves Research Foundation (BCRF) reports that it first submitted a National Karst Features Protection Proposal, covering 16 karst areas and nearly 100 blue-hole entrances, in 2001 ^[11]. A narrower proposal for South Abaco, developed with the Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation, Friends of the Environment and the Bahamas National Trust, went through public meetings and government review ^[11][12]. To show what lay underground, the BCRF used radiolocation to trace the footprint of cave passages beneath the proposed area ^[21]. According to the BCRF, the Bahamas Forestry Department declared nearly 33,000 acres (about 13,000 hectares) a Conservation Forest in August 2015, and in March 2019 the area was dedicated to the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy; the foundation said its next goal was World Heritage status ^[12].

Europe and Australia

In the Czech Republic, the Hranice Abyss lies in the Hůrka u Hranic National Nature Reserve, and the local caving group explores and studies it under an exemption from the national nature-protection act ^[14]. Italy's Pozzo del Merro sits in a regional nature reserve managed by the Metropolitan City of Rome; a 2022 article by researchers and reserve staff noted that logistical, administrative and technical difficulties prevented sustainable public use, and that the managing body had restarted discussion, with local municipalities and stakeholders, of conservation and controlled access ^[15]. In Western Australia, a 1999 study noted that Bundera Sinkhole, home to a remipede listed as endangered, lay outside any conservation reserve ^[13].

Land protection is aquifer protection

Because caves are part of aquifers, protecting the land above them protects the water in them. Florida's Department of Environmental Protection lists conserving and acquiring land in spring recharge zones among its tools for preventing nitrate pollution ^[16]. The Florida Springs Institute, an advocacy and research group, points to the 1999 Florida Forever Act and more than $3 billion spent on land conservation since 2001, but stated in September 2026 that the programme received no funding in the 2026-2027 state budget ^[17].

What responsible access looks like

The published codes share a few themes. Dive within training and site rules. Leave the cave as it was found, including fossils, formations, sediments and animals. Take out everything brought in. Treat landowners and communities as hosts whose goodwill keeps sites open ^[1][9]. Support the survey, science and conservation groups that document caves, because their maps and data are often what convince governments and landowners that a cave is worth protecting.