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Pan Merta stared emptily at a small corner of the rice field in front of him. His only son, Putu, was running around barefoot chasing away birds trying to eat the rice grains. He remembers many years ago when he was his son’s age and he also liked to chase the birds away with the other village boys. Only then, the rice field was much larger — at least ten times its size now — and all the land belonged to his father. Now, almost all of this huge paddy field of his youth has transformed into a five-star resort(the future of Bali) …
Pan Merta does not even own the small slice of land still used to grow rice on the once vast property. As a child, he would play at his family’s paddy field until sunset. There was ample food, he always wore new clothes for the Galungan holidays and the whole family was always together. Now, these sweet memories have turned bitter as he realizes his son will not have the same experience. Often his son sleeps on an empty stomach, and due to his father’s low income he was forced to drop out of elementary school.

Your comments the future of Bali:

Most of the bigger resorts and much of the prime land has been sold to other Indonesians, mostly from Java, or to Indonesian corporations. Most of the money being screwed out of the people of this island is going across the narrow strip of water to Java, to the elite in Jakarta who control most of Indonesia, and maintain the various monopolies on food, alcohol, telecoms and just about everything else that makes money.

Most hotels are owned by Indonesians, the big land grabs in the Bukit have well known Indonesian names behind them, and the chain restaurants, even with American names are all locally controlled.

Alan J

Denpasar, Bali

For every sad tale like this of a Balinese farmer’s failure to maximise the potential benefits of selling
his land, there are far more others who have invested and ended up very well off, providing for their future generations by starting new businesses (the future of Bali).

Land can only be owned by Indonesians, so these new owners and their families are benefiting from their legal investment. Even if some do decide to lease the property to foreign hotel or villa companies, that is a totally legal and clever marketing decision to maximise their profits, and they continue to share in these larger profits each year.

There is no benefit to anyone in trying to hysterically “take back the land” in an ill-considered xenophobic attempt to stop “foreigners” profiting from running a totally legal business. First of all, their Indonesian partners will lose out totally, despite being the legal owners of the land, and secondly such action will scare off all future foreign investors.

The legal situation is bad enough already for foreign investors, without proposing a communist-style “take back the land” coup that will hurt Indonesians far more than any foreign investor. Enough of this nonsense!

Bingun
Jakarta

Well, for many years now, the Balinese have not been in control of the development of their island.
It is the Javanese and the ethnic Chinese businessmen of Jakarta and Surabaya who are behind
the rampant developments, which fuel crime and prostitution. Tourism has pluses and minuses. Welcome to the minuses.

Tomaso Tettamanti
Lugano, Switzerland

“With the open tap of investment that encourages Balinese to sell their land, now the most desirable spaces in Bali no longer belong to Balinese. Most of the land with the best economic prospects is now owned by non-Balinese.”

Not all the land was bought, or bought fairly/legally. But besides that, Indonesia does not allow foreigners directly or indirectly to own land. None of the schemes from nominee agreements to investment companies can legally own and operate villas, etc.

So, as they are doing in Thailand, take the land back! What are these expats going to do? Nothing! Most live and work in Bali illegally anyway.

Don’t forget Indonesian women married to foreigners can no longer acquire land, so most of these marriages of convenience mean the land/villas the foreigner invested in afterwards are void anyway.
Take the land back and if the foreigners whinge about it, check out their visa and tax status as most are living in Indonesia for more than the two months per 12 month period allowed tax registration free, so they owe tons of tax dollars (on their worldwide income no less). So they can then be relieved of every penny they own and then deported. Perfect — you can take the land back and all their money and wish them a safe flight home!

Ebay
Washington

I totally agree with the author of the need to ensure that the tourist money pouring into Bali is used for the long-term benefit of local Balinese. Bali is a wonderful, magical place, with wonderful, kindly and welcoming people — and the best way to retain that is to let everyone be a tourism winner.

There is much to learn from the experiences of Europe’s tourist boom back in the 60s and 70s when idyllic areas were soon turned in nightmarish resorts … many places like Benidorm in Spain are still suffering the downside of rampant, uncontrolled tourism, although they now are taking important steps to reinvent themselves by moving more upmarket.

David Noble
Stockholm

The future of Bali

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