The "island of the gods" could be threatened by a potential environmental crisis. Water shortages, waste disposal problems, beach erosion, and the loss of natural habitats are all problems that will need to be dealt with at this transition time. Wayan Juniartha and Andre Syahreza report on the state of Bali's environment and ask the pertinent question: Who will be responsible for the future of the environment ?

Only a few hours after Megawati Soekarnoputri - the part-Balinese politician who is considered as the current representation of the "Just King" - lost the vote in the Indonesian Republic Presidential election for 4th President, her loyal followers in Bali decided to make a statement to the politicians in Jakarta. How? By destroying their own environment.
The first victims were the sheltering trees - some of them more than ten years old - that stood in line along the edge of the street. People gathered in a noisy group carrying various tools, such as chopping knives, axes, and even electric saws. They then cut down the trees and used them as road blocks.
After that, garbage bins were turned over and the contents piled up in the middle of street, where the rubbish was burned together with used tyres. The tonnes of organic and non-organic trash burnt in huge bonfires that blew thick dark smoke through Denpasar.

Tourism and the environment
Considering various incidents over the last few years, it seems that neither the average Balinese person nor the authorities have made environmental protection a priority. The simplest example is in the development of Bali's tourism policy, which always aims to increase the total number of tourists visiting the island, particularly foreign tourists.
The number of foreign tourists arriving in 1998 totalled 2.08million, but this number was not yet considered sufficient. The government has made a target for 2.7million visitors in 2000, and in 2002 the target is 3.9million. If this were added to the target of tourists for the rest of the archipelago, which is targeted 1.1million in 2002, 5million tourists would visit Bali in 2002.
A representative of the Balinese people in the Indonesian parliament, I.B. Adnyana Manuaba, has provided an interesting perspective on the potential problems associated with the unchecked increase in numbers of tourists. Manuaba compares Bali's situation to that of a small ship which can easily become overloaded and sink.
Manuaba's prediction could easily come true if you take these targets into consideration. To keep Bali afloat, he suggests using a planning concept that he has called "SHIP", or the Systematic, Holistic, Interdisciplinary and Participatory principle. Planning, he says, is a crucial area of concern for the tourist industry, and "without applying the principles of "SHIP", the tourist industry is a destructive machine."
If Bali continues to follow a policy of "as many as possible", the assumption will follow that Bali has a room crisis, and that there are insufficient hotel rooms available to accommodate the tourists that come. Hotel managements, then, will compete to build as many hotels as possible.
"According to this way of thinking, the ecological balance never becomes a priority. People, especially bureaucrats, simply think about the total profit and short term gains," says Yuyun Ilham, Executive Director of the Wisnu Foundation, one of the NGOs that is very concerned about the impact of tourism on Balinese ecology.

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