Waves of change and degradation: How surf tourism dumped on Bali and Indonesia!
Uluwatu in Bali in 2015. The classic 1972 surf film Morning of the Earth, with its depiction of the mythical wave at Uluwatu, opened the floodgates of surf tourism in Bali. Photo: Jason Childs
And yet Palmer – who surfed Bali in the 1970s when there was "bush all the way between Legian and Kuta" – confessed to a niggling regret in the book Bali: Heaven and Hell.
"After the success of the first one, they built a road into the break (at Uluwatu).I used to love walking in along the track – this narrow goat track with cactus either side, and stiles you had to climb over. I always regretted that we inadvertently caused that."
Child surfers on Morotai Island. One of
Indonesia's northernmost islands, Morotai boasts a unique surfing
culture. Photo: Jason Childs
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"But the Suharto-led development push on the peninsula was already on
the drawing board and nothing was going to stop it. It was just a shame
that the surfers had to open the door."Conundrum for surf exploration
La Gundi in Nias in 1981 when it was still described as a "surfer's dream". Photo: Dick Hoole
While an important driver of the economy in Bali, Java, Sumatra and parts of the eastern archipelago, it has also led to unwanted cultural change and environmental degradation.
"It's a subject that all of us surfers and surf explorers, particularly those who wrote about their adventures, feel somewhat ambivalent about – what part we played in the disintegration of the community," Jarratt says.
Peter Reeves' description of Lagundri Bay in Nias, Sumatra in the early 1980s is evocative. It was a surfer's dream, he writes in the Surfer's Journal, a time when you had to do boat trips to the mainland just to get food and surfers would sit through flat spells, chewing betel nut with the locals and teaching each other their language and culture.
"I miss those days," Reeves reminisced in 1997. "By the late 80s, the magic was gone. Lagundri had turned into an eroded, polluted, hygiene nightmare and the Stone Age warriors we first met in 1980 had, well and truly, turned into Basil Fawlty hoteliers. Today, you can fly in on a package tour, complete with swimming pool, cable TV, room service and outer island tours … Surfing has certainly boosted the Lagundri Bay economy, but I feel it has come at a huge cost."
Pollution 'worst I've ever seen'
On April 22, 2012, American surfing champion Kelly Slater tweeted: "If Bali doesn't #Dosomething serious about this pollution it'll be impossible to surf here in a few years. Worst I've ever seen".The following year surf photographer Zak Noyle published shocking images of Indonesian champion Dede Suryana surfing through waves of rubbish south of Java.
In the early days of surf exploration, surfers managed to keep breaks a closely guarded secret. This was partly selfish, says Patrick Burgess, who has been surfing in Indonesia since the late '70s, and partly a protective desire to stop communities being eaten up by the insatiable commercial machine.
But the launch of classic surf film Morning of the Earth in 1972, with its depiction of the mythical wave at Uluwatu, opened the floodgates of surf tourism in Bali. Surfers from all over the world came to experience the new mecca.
Then came the Om Bali Pro. But it is the digital age that has accelerated the pace of change exponentially. Burgess recalls being miffed when Lonely Planet's first book Southeast Asia on a Shoestring – known as the Yellow Bible – was published in 1975, because it meant everyone would go to the same places. Now social media means a hitherto little-known surf break is just a Facebook post or an Instagram photo away.
Strong responsibility to give back
"There is now a different ethic of sharing information," Burgess says. The Australian barrister lives in Canggu, 10 kilometres north of Kuta. It was once an idyll for artists and surfers , with views of paddy fields and a big, challenging wave.In the last three years Burgess has seen 300 new restaurants pop up within three kilometres of his house, development he says has been largely driven by access to surf.
"How do you connect a sense of social responsibility and caring for the local environment and culture with that speed of development?"
Many of the surf discoverers feel a strong responsibility to "give back" to Indonesia. Burgess is the co-founder of Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), which trains legal aid lawyers to defend the rights of local communities.
Claude Graves, one of the pioneers of surfing in Bali, has raised more than $US6 million for the Sumba Foundation, an aid organisation he co-founded to help the people of West Sumba rise out of poverty. Graves is a man who learnt from history's mistakes, although his method regarded as controversial in some quarters.
Determined to avoid the surfing slums in other parts of Indonesia, Graves and his wife Petra established a surf resort at Nihiwatu on Sumba, an island about 350 kilometres east of Bali that is still unspoiled by tourism.
The resort is unabashedly exclusive. The world-famous left-hand break wave directly in front of the resort – known as God's left – is restricted to 10 registered surfers, each charged at $US100 a day.
"There is a place for exclusivity if it's done right," Graves says. "Those who complain also complain about surf breaks being overrun with surfers."
The Sumba Foundation is largely bankrolled by Nihiwatu's wealthy guests. "There would be no donor base for the foundation without the surfers who seek exclusivity at Nihiwatu," Graves says. "They only come here because they know the wave will not be crowded. By being here they are helping to create incredible positive change in people's lives."
'Australian water was dirty compared to Bali'
The Sumba Foundation's programs include malaria prevention, which has reduced infection rates by 85 per cent, five clinics which provide healthcare to more than 20,000 people, the construction of 240 water stations, a malnutrition project and surgery for eyes, cleft palates and severe burns. Surfers at Nihiwatu are always encouraged to visit the villages."For Petra and I it was out of the question to develop our resort without giving something back," Graves says.
Meanwhile, Stephen Palmer has been spearheading the campaign for the environment in Bali for more than three decades.
"I was stunned when I first came here how clean the water was," he says. "Australian water was dirty compared to Bali back then, but now I'm shocked when I go back to Australia how clean it is. How is that for one lifetime?"
One of the major environmental problems in Bali is waste disposal. Prior to the arrival of plastic on the island, food was wrapped in banana leaves or hessian and deliveries were made in bamboo crates. But then the plastic invasion occurred. Bali, much of which does not have rubbish collection services, has failed to cope. A deluge of plastic chokes the waterways and forests.
In 2002, Palmer was a founding member of Yayasan Gelombang Udara Segar (GUS Foundation), a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving Bali's environment. The GUS Foundation, which means Waves of Change in Indonesian, has been educating children for years about recycling, not using plastic bags and composting. It was also involved in the establishment of a compost facility in the village of Temesi.
Development brings new approaches
Ninety per cent of rubbish is recycled before it goes to landfill and the remaining organic material turned into compost, which is then sold. Palmer is frustrated the model has not been adopted more widely. "It is an absolutely fantastic system waiting to be copied around the country and other developing nations."In 2012, CNN named Uluwatu the equal third top surf beach in the world. More than 500 people visit every day.
In the last 40 years, hotels and warungs (restaurants) mushroomed across the cliff face but few had their own septic tanks. Sewage and oil and organic waste from food was thrown directly into the ocean or dumped in a ravine near a cave entrance. The only access to the beach is through this cave.
"When the sewage was heavy it would be overflowing across the path you had to walk to the beach," says Tim Russo, the owner of Uluwatu Surf Villas. "If it was a particularly busy day, the next morning the cave would stink like shit."
Russo moved to Bali in 1999, when there was already some development on the Bukit, but nothing like there is now. In 2011, he and Palmer were among the co-founders of Project Clean Uluwatu, which has created a liquid waste processing plant for the refuse from warungs.
"Fifteen kitchens and various bathrooms didn't have correct sewage treatments," Russo says.
Now the treated water from the plant will be used in coral gravel gardens. The project members are waiting for Bali's rainy season to fully kick in before they transfer the plants to the gardens. "That pretty much completes four years of work to create a full circle system."
Nothing remains secret in the surfing world
Kevin Lovett, who discovered the Lagundri Bay surf break in 1975, says experience has taught that nothing remains secret for too long in the surfing world."A proactive approach would be to apply the lessons learned so that what remains off the beaten track could be more responsibly managed with a vision for the future that recognises the natural and social values of the place itself."
In 2013, surfer and photographer Jason Childs stumbled upon one of the most unique surfing cultures in the world. On remote Morotai, one of Indonesia's northernmost islands, the locals were originally taught to surf by a US soldier stationed there during World War II. Isolated from the rest of the world, the children developed their own method of riding waves using a crude wooden plank ripped off a boat or cut from a tree.
"I'd never seen anything like it in the 20 years I'd been in Indonesia," Childs says. "It takes enormous skill to ride (the wooden boards). It's dangerous – some of them have nails in them and most kids are riding in the nude."
Childs returned with surfer and writer Matt George last year. An account of their discovery – and Childs' stunning black and white photos – was published in Surfer magazine. But Childs and George made a conscious decision not to disrupt the surfing culture on Morotai by leaving behind fibreglass boards for the children.
"I thought back to a scene from Star Trek," George writes. "In the show, the crew of the Enterprise had a famous 'prime directive' stating that they were in no way permitted to disrupt or influence the cultures they discovered on their journeys. I wondered if we had made a mistake bringing our modern boards and modern surfing techniques to a place where surf culture was essentially locked in a time warp."
But to George's' surprise none of the boys showed any interest in his board anyway. "To them my foam and fibreglass board might just be some artificial intrusion into an otherwise organic act ... or maybe they just saw me struggling in the soft waves and assumed my board was a dog."