Spoiling Bali
Recently the magnificent calm and beauty of the Ayung Valley, west of Ubud, Bali, has been ruined by the construction of a new Four Seasons Hotel. The pristine valley, bisected by the Sungai Ayung, and home to numerous birds and reptiles, is now scarred with bright orange and blue plastic and walls of scaffold; the design philosophy of Frank Lloyd Wright giving way to the tacky "edifice complexes" of Indonesian hotel developers.
The construction is not only ugly and out of keeping with the feeling of the area, but it breaches the regulations which conserve greenbelts in Bali. The blatant flouting of regulations, environmental and aesthetic concerns, we have come to recognize, are sure fire signs that the arrogantly well-connected are at least partial owners of the site.
Building regulations stipulate a distance of 50 meters be maintained from rivers. As well as being good for the environment, any developer with a modicum of sense would design with a thought to freak weather conditions. Imagine the mighty Ayung spewing through the honeymoon suite or washing away diners about to indulge in dessert. This hotel sits about 10 meters from the bank! Roll on flash floods!
Remarkably the manager of Four Seasons was reported as saying, that this was a "green development" and that if the contractor was caught cutting down trees he would be fined US$500 per tree. Well bring out your checkbook boys, as we who live alongside this development, saw at least 60 trees cut down. This was after all jalur hijau (greenbelt) and farming land.
The most offensive thing about what is happening in Bali, is that with the systematic privatization of the beaches and rivers for hotel and villa development, the Balinese are gradually losing their access to water for upacara (ceremonies) such as ngaben (cremation) and those associated with the subak (agricultural farmers organization). Several people from our village expressed the fear that their sacred places are being built on, or polluted by the human waste from these building sites and hotels.
What does one have to do to make oneself heard? The Balinese complain (if they are not scared), tourists complain, foreign residents and businesses complain. The site is illegal even under flimsy Indonesian town planning regulations. Despite presidential and gubernatorial decrees prohibiting development in Bali in general, and Ubud in particular, hotels continue to rise like triffids, claiming the pura (temples) and kuburan (cemeteries) which stand in their path. I have been told that two more hotels are mooted for the valley. An Oberoi and a Serai. The "commodification" of nature and a living culture is now almost complete.
The valley, like so many pristine and natural places in Bali, is to be uglified, and dominated by humans in the name of development. So what happens when the tourists stop coming because the place they loved no longer exists? Will it be "Welcome to Baliworld -- the Theme Park?"
MELODY KEMP
Sayan, Bali