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Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques
World Underwater Federation
Confederacion Mundial De Actividades Subacuaticas

CMAS Logo
Abbreviation	CMAS
Motto	Quality in Diving
Predecessor	CIPS, Comité des Sports Sous-Marins
Formation	January 11, 1959; 60 years ago (1959-01-11) at Monaco
Type	Sports federation INGO Diver training organization
Purpose	Underwater sports & sciences, and diver training
Headquarters	Rome, Italy
Location	Viale Tiziano, 74 00196 Roma Italy
Region served	International
Membership	National Federations
Official language	French, English, Spanish
Leader	Anna Arzhanova
Key people	Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Main organ	General assembly
Affiliations	SportAccord ARISF IWGA IUCN
Staff	5
Website	http://www.cmas.org/

Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS) is an international federation that represents underwater activities in underwater sport and underwater sciences, and oversees an international system of recreational snorkel and scuba diver training and recognition. It is also known by its English name, the World Underwater Federation, and its Spanish name, Confederacion Mundial De Actividades Subacuaticas. Its foundation in Monaco during January 1959 makes it one of the world's oldest underwater diving organisations.^[1]

Origins

An international congress of diving federations representing all underwater disciplines met in Brussels on 28 September 1958. National
delegates attended from following countries: Belgium, Brazil, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, Monaco, Portugal, Switzerland, the United States of America and the former Yugoslavia. Following a decision at that congress, a meeting was held in Monaco on 9–11 January 1959, which officially established the World Underwater Federation, with an acronym based on its French title as CMAS.^[2]

A founding member and key proponent of CMAS was the French underwater explorer and diving pioneer Jacques-Yves Cousteau who was chosen to be the inaugural president with Luigi Ferraro, Italian underwater pioneer, appointed as vice-president.^[3]

CMAS succeeded the Comité des Sports Sous-Marins (Underwater Sports Committee) of the Confédération Internationale de la Pêche Sportive (CIPS) (International Confederation of Sport Fishing), which was founded on 22 February 1952.^[2][3]

Organisation

CMAS consists of three major committees - sport, technical and scientific.^[4][5][6] These committees are overseen by a board of directors (BoD) elected periodically at the annually convened general assembly. The BoD, the sport committee and the scientific committee oversee sub-committees known as commissions. Day-to-day operation is overseen by a steering committee appointed from the BoD. Its headquarters is currently located in Rome.

The steering committee

The steering committee consists of seven members. As of 2013, the members were:^[7]

Sport committee

The sports committee consists of commissions representing the following underwater sports - apnoea, aquathlon, finswimming, spearfishing, sport diving, underwater hockey, underwater orienteering, underwater rugby and underwater target shooting.^{[8][9][10][11]} An additional commission known as "visual" represents the sports of underwater photography and underwater video.^[12] All of those sports are governed at the international level uniquely by CMAS with exception of apnoea in which competition and governance is also provided by a rival organisation, AIDA International.^[13]

Technical committee

Role

The role of the technical committee is the provision of "safe diving for CMAS members" and seeks to achieve this by "promoting world class standards for all aspects of Scuba Diving and ensuring adherence of them by member federations and dive providers".^[14] Its officers who are elected from persons nominated at the CMAS General Assembly by affiliated national diving federations include the following positions - president, secretary, standards director, education director, technical director, diving security director, special tasks director and a number of general members. It oversees the two following systems - a diver training standards system known as the "CMAS International Diver Training Standards" and a certification system known as "CMAS International Diver Certificates".^[14][15]

Since CMAS effectively started as a volunteer organisation for hobbyists, its courses tend to reflect the full range of European and world diving standards. Compared to other diving organisations which may be more geared towards holiday and tropical water diving. While organisations like PADI or SSI tend to bring divers into the water immediately, CMAS entry-level training is more extensive, featuring more "classroom" delivered theory.^[16]

Qualifications

Standards, certification and training delivery

The CMAS training system.

The CMAS Technical Committee has developed a qualification system currently known as the "CMAS International Diver Training Standards" which consists of published universal standards for recreational diving, technical diving and leadership diver grades.^[17]

The CMAS Technical Committee has also developed a diving certification system called the "CMAS International Diver Training Certification System" for most of its diver training standards and which permits divers that have been trained in accordance with the CMAS International Diver Training Standards, to have their training recognised worldwide particularly in countries where CMAS affiliated federations exist. The system includes a double sided certification card format where one side depicts the achieved CMAS standard while the other side has details of the issuing organisation and the diver.^[15][18]

CMAS itself does not provide training or conduct the issuing of certifications - this is available from two sources. Firstly, from national diving federations affiliated to the CMAS Technical Committee using their member diving clubs, their member instructors where the federation is exclusively an instructor organisation or by agreement with independent underwater diving training organizations operating in the countries where those federations are based.^[19][20][21] Secondly, from specially accredited dive centres known as "CMAS Dive Centers" (CDC) who use dedicated CMAS training materials.^[22]

Recreational diver training programmes

CMAS four-star diver certification card

Standards are offered for recreational diver training for the following grades of snorkel and scuba divers.^[17]

Speciality diver training programmes

Standards are provided for the following speciality training for recreational divers:^[17]

Technical diver training programmes

Standards are provided for the following technical diver training grades:^[17]

Leadership diver training programmes

Standards are provided for the training of the following grades of recreational snorkel and scuba instructors:^[17]

Instructor speciality grades

Standards are provided for speciality training of assistants, dive supervisors, snorkel instructors and scuba instructors:^[17]

Scientific committee

Role

The committee considers its main task is to bring to the attention of the world underwater diving community, the important issues concerning the marine environment and how divers can play a major role in protecting it by serving as frontline observers of its overall health, particularly in respect to invasive species, coastal ecosystems and biodiversity.^[26]
Its officers who are elected from persons nominated at the CMAS General Assembly by affiliated national diving federations include the following positions - president, secretary, a number of general members and presidents of the following commissions - marine biology, marine archaeology, geology and professional relationships.^[6]

Scientific diving codes

Over a 10-year period from 1977, it was responsible for the development of the "Code of Practice for Scientific Diving" for UNESCO^[27] in cooperation with Sea Grant.^{[citation needed]}

Qualifications

The CMAS Scientific Committee oversees a system of diving standards and certification that operates in parallel to the CMAS International Diver Training Certification System.
The system was developed to which recognize the status of a diver who is qualified to dive in the course of research whilst employed. This internationally recognized standard of competence is a distinct advantage for working scientists who wish to travel between laboratories and institutes in different countries.
Known as the CMAS Scientific Diver Standard, the system consists of the following diver and instructor grades:

• CMAS Scientific Diver (CSD) (pre-requisite of CMAS 2 Star Diver plus scientific diver training)


• CMAS Advanced Scientific Diver (CASD) (pre-requisite of CMAS 3 Star Diver plus advanced scientific diver training)


• CMAS Scientific Diving Instructor (pre-requisite: CMAS 2 Star Instructor)


• CMAS Confirmed Scientific Diving Instructor (pre-requisite: CMAS 3 Star Instructor)

A programme of specialist courses both at entry and advanced levels in underwater archaeology, freshwater biology, marine biology, marine geology and oceanology is also offered.
Training and certification (also known as brevets) for the above qualifications is available from organisations known as CMAS Scientific Centres (CSC).^[28]

Recognitions, agreements and affiliations

Recognitions

Organisations which recognise CMAS as the international federation for underwater sport and activities include:

Agreements

• Agreement with the International Life Saving Federation (ILSF) was signed on 21 October 1994 regarding recognition of ILSF's rescue diver and instructors.^[35]
  


• Agreement with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) was signed on 30 January 1998 in Anaheim regarding a system of recognition for scuba divers moving between the CMAS and PADI training schemes.^[36]
  


• Agreement with the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) was signed on 27 April 2002 in Brussels to ‘explore the possibilities of cooperation between NAS and CMAS in the field of underwater archaeology’ including "exchange of information" and mutual recognition of training programs.^{[citation needed]}
  

Affiliations

• 
  International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)^[37]
  

Member federations

CMAS membership consists of at least 130 national federations from five continents including the following:^[2][38]

See also

References

External links

• CMAS homepage


• History of CMAS website


• 
  CMAS American Zone (in Spanish, English and Portuguese)


• Asian Underwater Federation (CMAS Asia)


• 
  CMAS Europe home page (in French) - as of December 2012, this website has been ‘temporarily disabled’.