Welcome to Bali. As travelers flock back to Bali after the pandemic in record numbers, the impact of overtourism is starker than ever. As buildings encroach on rice fields and garbage washes up on sandy beaches, has Bali lost its image as paradise? I feel very sorry for my grandchildren. It’s that they’re not going to have the same
experience that I had from 50 years ago. And how is the island's
dark past tied to its present plight? Bali, In Indonesia has been called Island of the Gods, the Living Museum. Paradise. But the island's outwardly, easygoing atmosphere may be a thing of the past. In February 2024, the local government launched a task force to deal with problematic tourists and locals alike. Hi, mate, how are you? So, you are not allowed with this motorbike on the beach because you will disturb other people. You need to come back and take your
motorbike and just walk here in the beach. Thank you very much. Understood, sorry. The taskforce currently employs around 70 officers. They are deployed in popular areas, such as here in Canggu and the neighboring Seminyak and Kuta districts. Part of their job is also to ensure tourists dress appropriately at sacred temples. Bali is the only Hindu enclave in mainly Muslim Indonesia. In this slice of paradise, there is a wave of discontent brewing. Last May, then Bali Governor Wayan Koster mooted putting a cap on visitor numbers, citing misbehaving tourists as the reason. Though the cap did not materialize, several occurrences since would highlight the problem. In 2023, Bali deported 340 foreigners, higher than 188 people the previous year. Mainly from Russia, the United States, Britain and Nigeria. Their violations included overstaying, working illegally and exposing themselves in sacred places. Earlier this year, police arrested three Mexicans for an armed robbery that left a Turkish tourist wounded. Last December, the attack on a beauty salon staff by two female tourists over a payment dispute went viral. The women, one British and one American, were arrested, then deported in February, according to local police,. The task force is a sign of an island grappling with its status as Indonesia's most popular tourist destination. Indonesia is made up of over 17,000 islands. Yet of the over 11 million people that visited the country in 2023, almost half made their way to Bali. Still, Bali wants more. Tourism has transformed
the economy, contributing directly or indirectly to roughly 80% of the economy. The pandemic was brutal for the island, costing around 200 trillion rupiah or 13 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Now Bali wants to make up for lost time and lost tourism receipts. In 2020, 2.2 million foreign tourists visited the island Last year, that number was 5.3 million, beating the target of 4.5 million. And this year the benchmark has been raised. But influx of tourists is putting a strain on Bali's resources and image tarnished by rampant development, overcrowding and gridlock. Bali made headlines in December when a traffic jam on a toll road forced people to walk up to four kilometers to the airport. Jams are also a constant on the roads, leading to places of interest The latest victim of Bali's development dilemma is the village of Canggu. Beginning in the 1960s, the infamous Kuta Beach
was one of the first areas to see substantial tourist development in Bali.
In the following decades, as tourism grew, developments spread north to Legian, then Seminyak and now Canggu. It was once a sleepy fishing village surrounded by verdant rice paddies. Now there are concrete buildings
on every street in Canggu. Developers are attracted
by the relatively cheap land prices here. Born and raised in Canggu, Kamajaya is also a community leader in his neighborhood. While locals reconcile the island's love-hate relationship with tourism, Bali's evolution into the country's top tourist destination is actually tied to a dark part of Indonesia's history. U.S. born Regina Rucina Ballinger is the co-writer of “Balinese
Dance, Dama and Music: A Guide to Performing Arts of Bali”. She first visited the island in 1974 to do research on Bali's culture, but Rucina fell in love with the island. When I came here, I was a starry eyed 21 year old, but I did not come here for the exoticism. I came here to do a serious research on dance and theater and its relationship to religion. But I was quite young and, in those days,
there was no electricity, no telephones, no typewriters were even scarce. So, it was a very different Bali. She would return to Bali after completing her studies in the United States, where she met her future husband, Anak Agung, Gede Putra Rangki. He came from a noble family. They married in 1986. The couple has two sons and three grandchildren. Rucina has witnessed the impact of tourism
on Bali in the last half a century. Well, actually, it's a double-edged sword. If you look at it from an economic standpoint,
there's a lot of good things about it. But tourism all over the world
also has the other side of the sword, which is environmental degradation. Cultural degradation. The tourists come in without, in some cases, without even an ounce of respect towards the local culture and without
understanding the local culture. Bali is thought to be inhabited as early as 4000 years ago. In the 14th century,
the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit empire settled on the island,
ruling it till the empire fell in 1520. Bali would become an independent
nation of Hindu kingdoms after, until it was colonized by the Dutch in 1906. The Balinese have always prided themselves
on their unique culture. So, people used to come
here because of the culture. The Dutch would market Bali as a luxury destination
of mystical temples and paddy fields. After independence in 1945. Bali continued to attract
a small number of tourists, but tourism took off in earnest under
second President Suharto's New Order government,
which lasted from 1967 to 1998. One activist cynically called Bali, “Jakarta's colony”. Tourism grew unabated, and by the 1990s the island received over
a million visitors a year. But beneath the gloss of Bali as an exotic paradise,
lies the island's dark past. The Dutch conquest of the island in 1906 was a bloody one. In the Puputan war, three local kings
and their subjects resorted to mass suicide rather than surrender to the Dutch. Around 1500 people died. In the 1960s, Suharto's regime purged
suspected communists throughout Indonesia. It was a retaliation
against the Indonesian Communist Party, after an attempted coup in Jakarta
in September 1965. Thousands were killed in Bali,
including Gus Ngurah Termana’s grandfather,
who was a teacher at that time. Ngurah is an activist at Taman 65. It’s a community
that preserves the memory of the Balinese who lost their lives in the purge. There is now
a critical examination of tourism and whether it was unwillingly foisted upon the Balinese
during the New Order period. Whenever there is
any kind of political unrest anywhere in Indonesia
that might affect people in Bali, the government then says,
“Oh, we need to do a cleansing, so, everybody has to put a certain
offering in their family temple. Then we have to do this ceremony. So, it's to divert people's energy into something that's religious
and in Bali that's fairly easy to do. But in one way tourism would bring positive
change to the island. In the evolving role of women. According to Balinese customs, women have no rights to own property. They are excluded from making decisions in Bali's deeply patriarchal society. That means that when they
get married, they move into their husband’s compound
and they are, kind of like a visitor there. Because then if the husband decides
to take a second wife and the first wife doesn't want to accept that, she's kicked out
and then she can't take her children with her. So, she doesn't have very much choice. That's one reason
I think women really like to work, So, they can get out of the house
and they can be somewhere where they are better respected. There is a resistance from the society to see a Balinese woman who is powerful and speaking up. Freedom is not free. Kadek Sonia Piscayanti is an English lecturer
at a local university. She writes poems
which mainly talk about Balinese women. If freedom is free, I will write freely. I will write a poem
about a Balinese woman, a woman who knows prison better than prisoners,
a woman who hangs herself and fails, a woman who cries every day
and stays strong. A woman who gets blame and remains calm. A woman who raise family
and get black magic. A woman who does everything
and gets nothing. What tourism has brought is economic opportunities for women. Even if women are mostly employed
in less-skilled labour, I think the positive side
is also that there are a lot of Balinese women working in the tourism industry,
like men as well. And of course it can help them empower
their families as well. And to me, when people are pessimistic
about women's voice in tourism It is because they are mostly waitresses, houseworkers or workers. I'm not thinking that it's totally true
because some of the women, I also know that they are managers
and they are directors. Even so, Kadek wants to help women find opportunities
beyond the tourist industry. She's the founder of Komunitas Mahima, an educational and cultural institution
that encourages youngsters to read. We need to be very careful
with the choice of what tourism we choose. I want to see that people do not think that tourism
is the only way to survive or the only way to live in Bali. Of course, in Bali, maybe 70% or maybe 75
people working in this industry. But you know, that is because the parents do not educate their children
that there are other ways. Yes, you can be professor,
you can be expert in other fields, and not work only in tourism. You can be a psychologist,
you can be a doctor, you can be anything. But as for the island itself,
does it have alternatives? What happens when the charm of Bali is destroyed
by the tourism it brings? These are the terraced rice fields in Jatiluwih, Central Bali. The UNESCO World
Heritage site is popular among tourists. Jatiluwih is protected
because of a centuries-old farming method known as Subak. At the center of Subak is Sri, the goddess of rice and fertility Shrines dedicated to her can be found in rice fields across Bali. Wayan Kaung brings tourists to Jatiluwih
at least four times a week, Foreign tourists pay 50,000 rupiah or around 3 U.S. dollars as an entrance fee. Indonesians pay 15,000 rupiah. It's less than one U.S. dollar. The cafes and restaurants around
Jatiluwih is a reminder that even a World
Heritage site is at risk of encroachment. Bali's emerald green rice fields are a marvel of human ingenuity. They are one of the reasons
why tourists visit the island. But they're disappearing. Every year Bali loses 700 hectares of agricultural land
to development. In 2020., Bali suffered a deficit of around 80,000
tonnes of rice. More than 60% of Bali's groundwater goes to the tourism industry,
drying up more than half of the island's rivers
and threatening sites like Jatiluwih. Bali's water table,
especially in the southern part of the island, has dropped more than 50 meters
since 2009, according to one study. For some farmers,
it is more lucrative to sell their land to developers than to eke out
a living in agriculture. Some of the remaining farmers now supplement their income
by making handicrafts. Agung Alit founded Mitra Bali in 1993. The enterprise buys and sells crafts
from these Balinese artisans. There is some irony
that Bali is so dependent on the tourism
that critics say are destroying it. Even the much touted “Balinese culture” has lost some of its mystique. Bali experienced a cultural renaissance
in the late eighties. Tourism money and interest
meant more funds to upkeep temples and hold traditional ceremonies. Some question if the pageantry loses its
authenticity when it is put up for a show. They are good for tourism because it's a spectacle. Starting
probably in the nineties maybe or in the early
2000s, everywhere in Bali, people were doing these huge ceremonies. So, what I mean by cultural
degradation is from the tourist side there is very little understanding
and from the Balinese side, when people say, “What should I see?”
they'll tell them to go and see these tourist performances, as opposed to going to a ‘warung’, a little food
stall, sit down, talk to the locals, have a cup of coffee
and learn about their lives. So, there's no real give and take going on. So, it's just the tourists are coming
and they're watching, they're taking pictures. It's an Instagram culture. It's “let's go, you know, to the beautiful spot”. And now all of these
places are making Instagram spots for the tourists. And some people come here just to do that. For content. Elsewhere, away from the crowded beaches,
Lake Tamblingan in central Bali is becoming increasingly popular
with tourists. It is formed from an ancient volcano caldera surrounded by dense rainforests. Putu Ardana is a community leader who works with the locals
to protect the forests. The lake and the forests help
protect water resources for the indigenous communities
who are mostly farmers. They grow coffee, oranges and vegetables. But a Ministry of Forestry decree in 1996 designated parts of the forest
as a Nature Tourism Park. The villagers are lobbying the government
to return stewardship of the forest to the locals. To do so,
the government has to first recognize the indigenous tribes’
ancestral rights to the land. As concern over
the impact of overtourism grows, the government has promised a more
sustainable vision of Bali's future, but will the allure of tourist dollars
prove too strong? Lenny Pande is a tourism consultant. She teaches Balinese dances
to children in her spare time. She promotes what she calls
the four pillars of tourism - art, culture, tradition and environment - the very reasons why tourists visit Bali. In the last two decades there have been ebbs and flows in Bali's
tourist numbers. In October 2002, two bombs killed 202 people in the Kuta
Beach area. It was the worst terror attack
in Indonesia's history. In the aftermath,
the number of tourists dropped more than 20%. In 2003, the SARS outbreak
then also contributed to the decline. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, the eruptions of the sacred Mount Agung led to the cancellations
of hundreds of flights. But the biggest shock would come in 2020. While travel and tourism have borne
the brunt of the COVID shutdown, nowhere is this more evident than
on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali. When the pandemic hit,
the number of foreign tourists plunged more than 80%. Over 20,000 people lost their jobs
in the tourism industry, and the local economy contracted 9.3%. It got worst in 2021, when only 51 foreign tourists visited the island,
a record low. The pandemic laid bare the island's utter dependance on tourism. They went straight back into tourism. And this has happened time and time again. And it's kind of like
why we'll never learn the lessons that we have to diversify. But what the pandemic offered was
perhaps a chance to rethink Bali's relationship
with tourism. In July 2023, outgoing Governor Wayan Koster issued a new guideline
on developing Bali in the next 100 years. The 2025 to 2125 guideline covers the protection of nature, culture
and the people of Bali. For the first time, the government
acknowledged the impact of mass tourism on Bali. Since February 14th ,
the government has also put in place a tourist tax of 115,000 rupiah or around 9 U.S. dollars. The collected revenue is meant to preserve
the island's cultural heritage
and protect its environment. But pressure from the central government and stakeholders to keep tourism
growing is strong. In May last year, Governor Koster
announced a ban on all activities on 22 of Bali's sacred mountains, blaming tourist misbehavior. Yet activities continued, and the ban is functionally toothless. In January this year, a 40 to 75% entertainment tax was met with fierce pushback
from the tourism industry. The tax has since been put on hold. Will the government's commitment
to sustainability hold when it runs up against the powerful,
and rich, forces of tourism? Until today, I personally haven’t heard of any strategic plan from the Bali government. Well, are we are going to do the real quality tourism? High quality tourism or are we still doing mass tourism? In the meantime, it could be up to local communities
to preserve their way of life. This is the traditional village Penglipuran, which attracts up to 5000 people a day. It is popular among Indonesian tourists who pay an entry fee of 25,000
rupiah per person or a dollar sixty cents. The money collected from visitors
is used to protect the culture and livelihoods of the 1200 odd villagers Nonetheless, the influx of tourists is intrusive. Visitors are allowed to enter family compounds
to look around, buy drinks, snacks and souvenirs. But the money from tourism
has proven to be useful. Around 3 billion rupiah or around
250,000 U.S. dollars were distributed to the villages
during the pandemic. As the villagers of Penglipuran resist
the temptations of development, around them,
the landscape continues to change. The Tourism
Ministry says that the future of Bali lies in such small-scale,
sustainable initiatives. But as the post-pandemic revival
of tourism continues at full steam, the rush to capitalize
on returning tourist dollars persists for now. And now we have a number of developments by mainly Russians and Ukrainians all over the island. I think there’s maybe seven or eight. With every gridlocked motorway, every piece of trash thrown in the seas and every tiled over paddy field, it feels like the paradise that is Bali becomes a little more lost. But with growing attention on overtourism, this could be a chance for change
on the island. Is Bali doomed? I would say now, yes, Bali is doomed. There's no way that these concrete jungles
can be turned back into rice fields or into agricultural land
or into something that's Balinese.