Bali News / Bali Travel and Holiday Updates

Indonesian Community for Environment (WALHI) demanded the government to stop environmental abuses to preserve social, economic, and environmental sustainability.  The Director of WALHI-Bali Agung Wiradhana on Saturday June 21st mentioned that he land in Bali has been a sought-after commodity to property investors, and destruction to the environment will be inevitable unless the investors wisely implement Balinese concept of Tri Hita Karana.

WALHI is now preparing to take legal effort in attempt to warn the Bupati of Tabanan district regarding commencing construction of villa development project on Kelanting Beach. However Agung admitted his appreciation to positive response from the Bupati who declared suspension of commencing construction. “Once more time, we are ready to legally warn Bupati if the development project which clearly taken up the beach clearance area gets continued” said Agung.

Agung continued that suspension has to be permanent and continued by deconstruction to avoid similar case as Loloan Yeh Poh, which whilst suspended, the investors took illegal attempts to get it resumed.

So far from WALHI’s investigation, the project is owned by Alila Tanah Lot, a tourism company based in Singapore. The layout planned to build 35 luxurious private villas each with private swimming pool. Designed by foreign architect Chan Soo Kian from SDCA Architects, marketing campaign has been widely started on the internet. Priced in Billions Rupiahs, the project offers freehold ownership certificate. Once completed the villas will be managed by a management company to offer them for holiday rental.

Spanning along the shoreline, the project will potentially block public access to the beach, as normally the management would tend to take it as a disturbance to their tenants. As the project is clearly taking up beach clearance zone and built without priorly approved environment impact analysis (AMDAL), WALHI demanded the local government to return the function of Kelanting Beach by deconstruction of the project, as a reflection to its consistency in enforcing environmental regulation.