Located in the mist-shrouded mountains of northern Bali, organic coffee producer Putu Ardana is leading the charge to revive traditional agriculture and protect sacred lands from mass development and tourism.
Ardana, 67, grows, harvests and roasts Arabica beans without chemicals or fertilizers in his village of Munduk, located 800 meters above sea level. He uses water from the nearby Tamblingan Lake, which is sacred to him and other members of the indigenous Dalem Tamblingan people who first settled around local lakes and forests in the 9th century.
The island province of Bali is also at the heart of Indonesian tourism. The popular destination accounts for half of the country’s $20 billion in annual tourism revenue and most of its tens of millions of visitors. Eighty percent of the Balinese economy depends on tourism.
But Ardana believes that “tourism should be a side effect…not our main goal or our way of life.”
Bali’s mass tourism, concentrated in southern cities, has long “reached a tipping point,” says Stroma Cole, a professor at the University of Westminster who researches tourism and water in Bali. More than 65 percent of Bali’s fresh water is channeled into tourism, which is contributing to a water shortage exacerbated by increasing urbanization, recent droughts and climate change. Half of the province’s 400 rivers have dried up and experts warn that Bali could run out of water within years. Local Balinese bear the brunt of the water crisis that has endangered food security and threatened cultural sites and traditional practices.
In 2017, the Indonesian government designated Munduk as an environmentally-focused “tourism village”, along with six others. But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jakarta designed an even more ambitious tourism plan that prioritized attracting millions more tourists and transforming rural villages and ecologically sensitive areas into tourist hotspots like Bali. The government says it will focus on sustainable and inclusive tourism that will prioritize local and protect the environment. Among the designated tourist sites is Munduk, which highlights the challenges of balancing economic growth and any real, sustained benefits for people and the environment.
The jewel in the crown and the water crisis
Dotted with lush jungles and white sand beaches, Bali is known as the “crown jewel” of Indonesian tourism. consistently ranges among the main tourist destinations in the world. In 2019, of the 16 million international tourists who visited Indonesia, six million landed in Bali. Last year, almost half of the 11.7 million foreigners who arrived in the country went to Bali. This year, the island province aims to attract seven million visitors.
Bali’s mass tourism industry has brought economic development. Has multiplied its GDP tenfold and employs at least a quarter of the Balinese workforce. It has also helped cultivate water scarcity along with growing wealth and disparities in quality of life.
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Balinese tourism relies heavily on foreign investors and local elites who have razed farmland, displaced residents and tapped dwindling groundwater supplies to build water-guzzling luxury villas and resorts. Bali’s water demand related to tourism increased by 295 percent from 1988 to 2013, and the average tourist consumed three times as much water as local residents. The province loses approximately 1,850 acres of agricultural land annually to tourism.
“Tourism on the island continues to boom, but for whom? The water crisis in Bali is much more than a water shortage. “It is a catastrophe that affects the quality of life, livelihoods and traditional Balinese culture of the local population,” says Jaeyeon Choe, a researcher at Bournemouth University who studies sustainable tourism and community development in Bali.
Bali’s freshwater aquifers have fallen to a record low of 20 percent as water is diverted from rural areas and agriculture to support tourism development, according to research by the IDEP Foundation, an Indonesian NGO, and Politeknik Negeri Bali University.
“What scares us… is that we may not have clean water in two, three or five years,” says Fransiskus Edward Angimony, an IDEP researcher who works with the foundation’s Bali Water Protection program.
Sustainable tourism in the ‘town above the clouds’
Munduk, known as the “village above the clouds” with spring-fed waterfalls, is a key freshwater source for Bali. Its mountain lakes provide 35 percent of the province’s water supply. But the city of 6,000 people is also intertwined with Indonesia’s plan to develop “high-quality sustainable tourism” that will attract 40 million visitors by 2025.
Deforestation caused by illegal logging and conversion of land for monocultures, such as hydrangea flowers, along with development for tourism purposes, have depleted Munduk’s lakes in recent years. “As a child in the 1970s, I saw that the waters of our lake were still full. Now we have less water every year,” says Made Sawika, a Munduk local and the town’s head of tourism. Some locals worry that the push toward tourism will repeat the mistakes of southern Bali by intensifying water scarcity, entrenching inequalities and eroding cultural practices.
Munduk’s land prices and taxes have skyrocketed since it was chosen as a tourist town, with only a minority of residents benefiting from the changes. “It has brought money to a few, but it is destroying our land and our water resources and our unique Balinese civilization,” Ardana says.
Munduk residents – and other balinese towns — frequently clash with tourism developers over concerns about water loss and encroachment on ecologically and culturally sensitive sites. “We glorify our water, our forests and our land. It is our source of life and must be protected,” says 19-year-old Munduk local Diandra Orissa, an indigenous youth leader who spoke at the COP28 summit in Dubai last year.
In recent years, foreign and local investors have obtained state-authorized permits to develop tourist sites in Alas Mertajati, the forest area that covers Lake Tamblingan. In 2021, a movement led by indigenous youth in Munduk disrupted one such development over concerns that it would destroy native flora and fauna.
“But there is always news [tourism developments] Appearing. Much land has been purchased in Bali for tourism purposes, even as locals have rejected the idea. It should not happen in ecologically sensitive areas and especially against the will of the people,” says Cole.
Munduk’s ecotourism mandate and ecological status mean that fish farming and water tourism remain prohibited in Lake Tamblingan. Businesses such as hotels require special permits for construction. All Munduk hotels promote themselves as eco-resorts.
Puri Lumbung, a locally owned resort where musician David Bowie once stayed, relies on traditional Balinese architecture instead of air conditioning to cool its 20 villas. The property draws water from designated aquifers and carefully monitors its use. Munduk Moding Plantation, a luxury eco-resort, filters wastewater through gardens, allowing it to reuse water on its grounds.
Despite these efforts and the hotels reduction of water use“The reality is… if you have more tourists, you need more hotel rooms and you’re using more water,” leaving less for residents, Cole says. “We know there will be less water in Munduk if we have more hotels,” says Sawika.
Meanwhile, some developers and tour operators are gaming the system. “Hotels could have six or seven wells where they get water, but only report two of them to minimize their taxes,” says a local business owner who asked not to be identified.
Local participation and buy-in remain key to Munduk’s water conservation efforts. Munduk locals recently partnered with the Bali Water Foundation to develop prototype water recharge wells to collect rainwater. But even if the project is successful, “the 40-year water cycle means we will only be able to… see the benefits within 40 years,” Angimony says.
At the same time, community leaders like Ardana have led the fight to protect the village’s land and water sources by promoting and returning to organic farming: “It offers an alternative income avenue to tourism that also raises awareness about our precious resources and our agricultural heritage. “He says. Community leaders like Ardana have led the fight to return to organic farming, an alternative to tourism that provides an avenue of income for locals, “awareness about the land and our agricultural heritage,” he says.
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The government is now focusing on its five tourism “super priority zones” (in ecologically and culturally sensitive areas) which it hopes will become the country’s new Balis. But this plan only “provides an illusion of prosperity while hiding the deeper problem,” Angimony says.
“The government wants to make people believe that Bali… is the [growth] model that we must follow. But Bali is not good. There are many problems derived from the mass tourism that we create in Bali. “We do not reject tourism, but we need a better model.”