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Further warnings have been sounded over the pace of tourism development in Bali, with Dutch professor of service management Jan Hendrik Peters telling an international seminar on green tourism that the island’s social and physical infrastructure is strained beyond its limits.

“Bali is under threat of becoming the victim of its own tourism success story. The high growth of visitors every year has strained the island’s resources and infrastructure beyond its limits,” Peters said.

He said tourism has driven the island’s economy in a positive way with statistics showing a 16 percent rise in the provincial GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 2006-2008, but this was offset by negative factors such as vastly increased visitor numbers.

“Over the years, Bali GDP has grown as a result of the development of tourism activities. Tourism has grown significantly,” Peters said.

The number of foreign visitors to the island had dramatically increased from 1.3 million in 1997 to 2.4 million in 2009. But this had produced negative impacts on the environment and natural resources.

“The character of tourism has changed over the years. Although Bali is still a luxury destination, with its 200 five-star hotels, mass tourism has resulted in hotel developments of hotels all along the southern coastline,” Peters said.

“The increase in absolute tourist arrivals and the associated rise in the number of hotels have triggered a number of effects that are harming the environment and the attractiveness of Bali as a tourist destination.”


Obvious examples of environmental degradation were increased air and water pollution, decreasing forest cover and cuts to agricultural areas.

The one-day seminar, organized by Tri Hita Karana Foundation and the Bali provincial government, was part of the government’s Clean and Green Bali Campaign and Green Province programme.

Gede Ardhika, former minister of culture and tourism and a member of the ethics code committee at the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, said some Balinese were misinformed about what the word tourism meant.

“Some think it means luring as many visitors as possible to generate income for the people and the island’s tourism industry,” he said.

Bali has tremendous local wisdom including Tri Hita Karana (the harmonious balance between nature, people and culture) in protecting its culture and environment. So tourism must be developed by using this harmonious and centuries-old tradition if we want to build green tourism.

He added: “In reality, tourism benefits a small group of people and investors while destroying the island’s environment and traditions.”

Another speaker, Ketut Gede Dharma, a member of the Centre for Environment Studies at Udayana University, said tourism’s contribution to deteriorating Bali’s environment was obvious.

“Beaches in South Bali have been heavily polluted. This requires efforts from all stakeholders in the community to improve environmental conditions in Bali,” he said.

http://www.thebalitimes.com/2010/12/13/new-warnings-sounded-over-too-crowded-bali/

Related articles

• Bali’s Travel Boom: Eat, Pray, Love Tourism (time.com)
• Bali beckons ‘literary tourists’ (search.japantimes.co.jp)
• Bali fears for its cultural heritage as tourists flood into Indonesia (guardian.co.uk)

The World Bank on Thursday launched a program to help nations put a value on nature just like GDP in a bid to stop the destruction of forests, wetlands and reefs that underpin businesses and economies.

The five-year pilot project backed by India, Mexico and other nations aims to embed nature into national accounts to draw in the full benefits of services such as coastal protection from mangroves or watersheds for rivers that feed cities and crops.

“We’re here today to create something that no one has tried before: a global partnership that can fundamentally change the way governments value their ecosystems,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters in the Japanese city of Nagoya.

More than 100 ministers are in Nagoya for a UN meeting that aims to seal a historic deal to set new 2020 targets to combat the rapid loss of plant and animal species from deforestation, pollution, over-hunting and climate change.

One of the targets before the ministers is to agree to include the values of biological diversity into national development plans, or possibly national accounts.

“For economic ministries in particular, it’s important to have an accounting measure that they can use to evaluate not only the economic value but the natural wealth of nations,” Zoellick told Reuters in an interview.

“It’s not a silver bullet. It’s a way of trying to help people understand better in economic terms the value of natural wealth.”

While economists try to get a handle on the value of nature, scientists are struggling to get a full picture of the variety of wildlife species around the globe as climate change, exploitation and pollution threaten “mass extinctions”, a series of studies published on Wednesday showed.

Envoys at the Japan meeting, the product of years of negotiations, are trying to win agreement on a 20-point plan that aims to protect fish stocks, fight the loss and degradation of natural habitats and conserve larger land and marine areas.

Greater financing from rich nations, possibly through redirecting subsidies from the fossil fuel, fishing and other industries is key.

Envoys are also aiming to clinch by Friday a new pact that sets laws for the sharing of genetic resources between governments and companies, such as drug and agri-resources firms.

Poorer nations want greater controls to protect their environment and to potentially earn billions of dollars in extra revenue from the benefits of trees to fungi, insects to frogs.

Delegates and greens say the talks are making progress ahead of Friday’s deadline but were still deadlocked on some issues and negotiations were expected to continue deep into the night.

“There is definitely a positive atmosphere,” Norwegian Environment Minister Erik Solheim told Reuters. “Everyone wants to reach a consensus here.”

The World Bank program will give developing countries tools to help them measure the value and benefits of their ecosystems. India’s Environment Secretary Vijai Sharma said at the launch the tools would make impact assessments more objective when looking at bids by miners or steelmakers to set up operations in India.

David Fogarty and Chisa Fujioka, Reuters, Nagoya, Japan | Fri, 10/29/2010 2:05 PM | The Jakarta Post