Tourists yes... but environment first
Tourists yes... but environment first
Dean Yates
Reuters
Selemadeg Kaja, Bali
Staring at the terraced green rice fields that drop away into
the distance, Putu Mahardika ponders how to tap the tourist trade
on Indonesia's Bali island without harming his village's pristine
environment.
Mahardika says the shimmering fields must not be touched by
developers seeking to build hotels in Bali's quiet hinterland,
away from the famous Kuta Beach where hordes of tourists and
hawkers cram into a thin strip of southern coastline.
"Tourism doesn't have to ruin the environment, and it can also
help the life of the villagers here," said Mahardika, chief of
Selemadeg Kaja village, located near the center of the island and
surrounded by coconut palms, forests and several rivers.
In a small way, Mahardika's dilemma illustrates part of the
problem faced by delegates meeting in Bali to prepare for a U.N.
summit that aims to cut poverty while saving the environment.
The dilemma delegates face is how to quickly speed development
in poor nations without sacrificing the natural beauty found on
islands like Bali.
Kuta might be a great job market for Indonesians and offer
tourists the ultimate package experience, but to others its
endless backpacker hostels and snarled traffic are a turn off.
GLOBAL TALKS
Some 6,000 government officials and environmentalists are
holding two weeks of talks in Bali ahead of the World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg next August.
Johannesburg aims to revive the spirit of the landmark Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, where world leaders
reached agreement on balancing the world's economic and social
needs with the environment.
Most of the goals adopted at Rio have not been met.
After taking a business management course, Mahardika, 39, decided
the best approach for Selemadeg Kaja was to get tourists off
Bali's beaches and take them trekking along trails that winds
through the rice fields and surrounding forests.
The plan is still in the early stages -- although colorful
brochures have been printed that portray the type of green,
carpeted rice fields that grace many Bali postcards.
Adamant he would resist the lure of big dollars from
prospective hoteliers, and claiming the village's several hundred
residents back him, Mahardika envisages tourists staying in
simple accommodation or just making day trips.
Bali is Indonesia's premier travel destination, attracting
nearly 1.5 million foreign tourists last year out of the five
million who visited the world's largest archipelago.
It has been largely free of the civil unrest that has rocked
other parts of Indonesia since the mainly Muslim country plunged
into economic and social chaos in the late 1990s.
Mahardika said another reason for preserving the rice fields
was to protect Bali's traditional system of rice growing called
Subak, an integral part of Balinese culture where farmers work
together to share water and maintain irrigation systems.
About 100 tiny stone or wooden temples dot Selemadeg Kaja's
rice fields, attesting to the offerings made in prayer for good
harvests as part of Subak, which dates back centuries and emerged
from traditional Balinese culture and the island's Hindu faith.
Nyoman Sutawan, a professor of agricultural at Bali's Udayana
University, said keeping tourist developments away from the
island's rice paddies was vital. Many fields near Bali's urban
areas had already been lost to the tourist dollar, he said.
"What's most important is that Subak is a tool for
environmental protection, it protects the land, prevents floods
and landslides during the rainy season...," Sutawan told Reuters.