Bali calls for a halt to new resort developments

Bali’s regional government says it has little control over new developments and has been shocked at some recent constructions

The partial destruction of a cliff side in Uluwatu. Picture: Instagram

No more mega beach clubs, no more hotels, and no more tourist villas.

Bali’s governor has urged the Indonesian government to impose a tourism construction moratorium on the resort island, saying years of rampant development have led to massive infrastructure problems and local resentment that could well trigger a Barcelona-style backlash against tourists.

Acting governor Sang Made Mahendra Jaya said a temporary ban on tourism accommodation development was needed in the popular southern areas of Denpasar, Badung, Gianyar and Tab­anan in particular, as well as protections for the island’s rapidly disappearing rice paddies.

Mr Jaya said the regional government had little control over development under Indonesia’s streamlined online single submission system that sends building permit applications straight to Jakarta, and had been shocked at some of the developments allowed to go ahead.

“The Bali provincial government has made a proposal to implement a moratorium on the construction of hotels, villas, ­discos, and beach clubs (in the south) for one to two years,” Mr Jaya said on Tuesday.

“At present, should a property developer want to convert a large area of agricultural land into commercial land use, an application must be made to the OSS, and the decision is made by officials operating within central government agencies, not provincially within Bali.”

He cited recent cases of egregious developments including one in which bulldozers were filmed destroying a clifftop and sending huge boulders into the surf below, and the sudden construction of two new mega beach clubs in Tabanan and Denpasar.

“I was shocked as an official; I just saw on TikTok that there was a cliff cutting going viral; we didn’t know it was already there. Suddenly, there was another big beach club in Tabanan and Denpasar; we didn’t know either, so we were just dumbfounded.”

Hill and cliff dredging is banned under the Balinese Hindu principle of Tri Hita Karana, a philosophical concept that seeks to harmonise the spirit realm with nature and the human world. That has not prevented multiple over-the-top developments, including around Bali’s surfing mecca of Uluwatu, that have outraged locals and the international surfing community alike.

Boulders are dislodged from the cliff side in Uluwatu. Picture: Instagram

An August article in Surf magazine Stab on the destruction of an Uluwatu clifftop, allegedly to stabilise the nearby Pura Luhur Hindu temple, has raised questions over the commercial motivations for the $7.8m project that involves an unsightly 25m seawall and coastal road.

The plan has the support of the country’s most powerful minister, Luhut Pandjaitan, who has raised the prospect of a five or even 10-year moratorium on tourism construction in Bali.

“No more people should build villas in rice fields; let the rice fields be rice fields so that Bali becomes a unique Bali,” Mr Luhut said when asked about the issue.

Agung Suryawan Wiranatha, who heads Bali’s Udayana University Research centre on tourism and culture, told The Australian a previous development moratorium from 2010 to 2016 was a failure because of poor implementation at the district level, and the situation had deteriorated further since then.

“There was already an oversupply of 50,000 rooms in 2010 ... with an average drop in occupancy from 70 per cent to nearly 50 per cent between 2000 and 2010,” Mr Wiranatha said. “Now the oversupply exceeds 60,000, and even as high as 80,000.”

Bali has already introduced a tourism tax levy this year of 150,000 rupiah ($15), but officials are pushing to raise this to $75 to attract “higher quality” visitors. So far this year, officials have deported more than 130 foreign tourists for bad behaviour.

Indonesian tourism minister Sandiaga Uno recently warned against anti-tourism protests, such as those seen in the Spanish tourist hub of Barcelona where locals took to the streets to tell tourists to go home, even spraying them with water pistols.

Additional reporting: Dian Septiari