Millisphere, n. A discrete region populated by roughly one thousandth of the total world population; a bit over seven million people (but anywhere between 3.5 and 14million will do); a lens through which to study human geography.
When I first sat down and divided the world into millispheres Bali was just under my cut-off limit of 3.5 million people. Now, a decade later, Bali’s population stands at nearly 4.5 million. Indonesians coming to take advantage of Bali’s inexorable growth in tourism have been the main driver of this recent population spurt.
Before 1963 there were only three hotels in Bali. In 1963 President Sukarno (who was Javanese but whose wife was Balinese) built the Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur (the first hotel on Bali’s South Coast).
During the 1960’s hippies, travelling by bus, train and ferry through Indonesia, discovered Kuta Beach before there were hotels there, staying in Losmans (traveller accommodation, usually attached to a the family home). These days Kuta Beach is lined with concrete hotels, not dissimilar to Australia’s Gold Coast.
In 1970 the international airport was built near Denpasar, opening the floodgates to national and international tourists. Bali now receives over 3.5 million foreign tourists and 5 million Indonesian tourists every year, but it has come at a cost to their environment.
Bali is still rated the highest for water quality of all of Indonesia’s 33 provinces but because of overexploitation by the tourism resorts 200 out of Bali’s 400 rivers are dry before they reach the sea. On the Bali’s South Coast, where most of the five star hotels and million dollar mansions are, there are now water shortages.
The profligate use of water in the tourist resorts stands in marked contrast to the Balinese Subuk water management system. Developed in the 9th century, the Subuk irrigation system is a complex, pulsing ecosystem administered by the priests from Bali’s Hindu temples. Based on a triumvirate of humans, earth and gods the Subuk system starts with the management of the forests where the waters originate. The water then flows through canals, tunnels, weirs, villages and temple water-gardens before supplying 1200 collectives, of up to 500 farmers each, with water to irrigate their rice terraces.
Tourists, with their natural suspicion of Third World water, demand their drinking water in plastic bottles, which end up in the 20,000 cubic metres of rubbish produced by the tourist resorts of Bali every day. Seventy-five percent of Balinese rubbish dumps are “informal” and during the rainy season plastic discharges into the sea and washes up on the tourist beaches.
It is estimated that, for every one foot (300mm) of coastline in the world, three singlet bags full of plastic rubbish ends up in the sea every year. Last year on holiday in Northland I discovered a line of multi-coloured plastic particles along the high tide mark all the way up the West Coast above Auckland.
From the 24th to the 27th of February this year the World Ocean Summit was held in Bali to discuss, amongst other things, the amount of plastic waste that ends up in the sea. Optimistically subtitled: “bridging the gap between sustainability and economic growth,” this talkfest was held in the five star Nusa Dua Beach Resort on Bali’s South Coast. Their topic for discussion could equally have been: “are we part of the problem?”
Enjoying their time in Bali’s tropical paradise were business leaders, representatives from the United Nations, NGOs and governments and a handful of academics. Eighty-six percent of them came from North America and Europe with only ten percent from the Asia/Pacific (many of the rivers of Asia are clogged with plastic). Fully ninety-six percent of the attendees surveyed said that the conference had been enjoyable and “very useful”.
We tourists are not the only ones to blame. Not too long ago most of the rubbish we humans produced was organic and biodegraded. Now plastic is everywhere and it’s hard to buy even the simplest food item that doesn’t come on a styrofoam tray and wrapped in polythene.
Once, while waiting to board a plane at Denpasar International Airport, I idly counted the number of times the plastic wrapping machine went around a suitcase belonging to one of a group of chattering Australian tourists – it was an astonishing seventeen times.
Eavesdropping I learned that the Australians had enjoyed their time at Kuta Beach. “Jeez we had fun, got peesed every noight,” one said … leaving the locals to pick up their empties and their rubbish.